There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.

Plath’s line uses blunt bodily humor to describe how intimacy can be forged through shared vulnerability. “Puking” stands in for any moment when social polish collapses—illness, drunkenness, fear, or emotional breakdown—and another person witnesses it without turning away. The shock of such exposure can shortcut ordinary social rituals: embarrassment becomes a kind of truth-telling, and mutual caretaking (or simply mutual recognition) produces a fast, durable bond. The quote also hints at Plath’s recurring interest in the body as a site where private suffering becomes undeniable, and where relationships are tested by whether they can accommodate the unglamorous realities of human frailty.