Personal style in jewelry is different from personal style in clothing in one important way: jewelry, once acquired and worn, tends to stay in a collection indefinitely. Clothing gets donated when it stops being worn. Jewelry accumulates in a dish or a drawer, generating occasional guilt about the pieces that are no longer used and occasional pleasure at rediscovering a forgotten favorite. The...

Friendships are harder to mark than romantic relationships. There is no universally recognized occasion for celebrating a best friendship, no established ritual for honoring the people who have known you longest and loved you most consistently. Birthdays and holidays are opportunities, but they are not specific to the friendship itself. The gifts exchanged at those occasions say "I was thinking...