[Scene: A cozy Moscow coffee shop, snow tapping gently on the window. Dmitry and Anya sit with mugs of hot chocolate.]
Anya: (rubbing her foot) Ugh, Dima! You stepped on my foot! Quick, let me step on yours before we end up arguing for a month.
Dmitry: (laughing) Anya, we’ve been friends for ten years. If accidental foot-stomping is what breaks us, we were never meant to be.
Anya: That’s not the point! It’s bad energy! My babushka always said if someone steps on your foot and you don’t even it out, it stirs conflict. It’s like… emotional symmetry.
Dmitry: Emotional symmetry? You know that’s not a thing, right? That’s not physics—it’s folklore. You’re not a Newtonian pendulum.
Anya: (grinning) Maybe not, but my relationships are more stable when I follow these little rituals. You don’t remember? In university, when Olga didn’t let me step back on her foot, we fought three times that week!
Dmitry: Maybe Olga was just annoying. And maybe you were stressed because you expected a fight. That’s what psychologists call a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Anya: And I call it prevention! Like an insurance policy. What’s the harm in a quick tap on the foot?
Dmitry: Because then one day you’ll be in a boardroom and stomp the CEO’s shoe and say, “Sorry, Viktor Viktorovich, I need to step on you now to preserve our corporate bond.”
Anya: (snorting with laughter) Only if I want to keep my job, obviously.
Dmitry: But seriously, Anya, these beliefs stick around because they feel comforting—not because they’re true. Just like knocking on wood, or not whistling indoors. None of it changes anything physically.
Anya: So you don’t knock on wood?
Dmitry: Of course not!
Anya: And you’ve never had a run of bad luck after jinxing something?
Dmitry: Well, once I said, “At least I haven’t caught a cold this winter,” and then I got the flu two days later. But that was coincidence. Correlation isn’t causation.
Anya: Uh-huh. That sounds exactly like the universe teaching you humility.
Dmitry: Or… maybe I touched a contaminated subway rail and got a virus. Again—science.
Anya: Okay, Mr. Rational. But even science has rituals. You wear lab coats, follow procedures, double-check everything. Isn’t that kind of… superstition with data?
Dmitry: That’s repeatability and error minimization. Not ancient foot revenge strategies.
Anya: I don’t need science to explain everything. If stepping on your foot saves a friendship—or just makes me feel better—why fight it?
Dmitry: I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m saying don’t rely on it. You could resolve conflict by talking instead of toe-tapping.
Anya: Sure, but if I can talk and stomp? Double insurance.
Dmitry: (smiling) You’re incorrigible.
Anya: And you’re a buzzkill. Now give me your foot before fate gets ideas.
Dmitry: Fine. But only because I’m curious to see if we go a whole week without arguing.
Anya: Deal. And if we do, you owe me a blini.
Dmitry: And if we don’t, I’ll remind you that your foot-based diplomacy failed.
Anya: Either way, I win.
Science Vs Superstition 
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