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Answers: True Friends
Another answer in response to this meme. Meme is still open if you want to leave a screened question.
Someone asked:
What qualities do you look for in a friend? What makes someone a good/close friend as opposed to someone you're just friendly with?
For years I've come back to this statement, which I think I first saw on a poster offered by the Scholastic Book Club back in junior high: A friend is someone who knows everything about you and loves you anyway.
The greater the depth of mutual honesty and acceptance I can reach with a person, the better the friendship. Good/close friends are people with whom I can be myself without worry about rejection. That doesn't mean they always agree with me, or that they don't sometimes ask tough questions, but those questions aren't attacks.
Some of my best friends are the ones with whom I've had conflicts but we've worked through them and forgiven each other, making the bonds of trust that much deeper.
There are some friends where the depth of sharing doesn't reach as far as it might -- usually due to the natural discretion and reticence of the other person -- but there's still openness, acceptance, deep trust, and mutual affection: a treasuring of each other.
Being alike isn't a requirement. Most of my best friends have been very different from me in a lot of ways. Of course, chemistry plays an element as well, just as it does in romance. Some people just "click".
"Doing things together" has seldom been a measure of friendship for me. It's great when it happens, but it's not part of the measure of friendship.
Authenticity. Acceptance. Trust. Presence/Being There -- even if it's only through email or phone. Affection. Cherishing.
Someone asked:
What qualities do you look for in a friend? What makes someone a good/close friend as opposed to someone you're just friendly with?
For years I've come back to this statement, which I think I first saw on a poster offered by the Scholastic Book Club back in junior high: A friend is someone who knows everything about you and loves you anyway.
The greater the depth of mutual honesty and acceptance I can reach with a person, the better the friendship. Good/close friends are people with whom I can be myself without worry about rejection. That doesn't mean they always agree with me, or that they don't sometimes ask tough questions, but those questions aren't attacks.
Some of my best friends are the ones with whom I've had conflicts but we've worked through them and forgiven each other, making the bonds of trust that much deeper.
There are some friends where the depth of sharing doesn't reach as far as it might -- usually due to the natural discretion and reticence of the other person -- but there's still openness, acceptance, deep trust, and mutual affection: a treasuring of each other.
Being alike isn't a requirement. Most of my best friends have been very different from me in a lot of ways. Of course, chemistry plays an element as well, just as it does in romance. Some people just "click".
"Doing things together" has seldom been a measure of friendship for me. It's great when it happens, but it's not part of the measure of friendship.
Authenticity. Acceptance. Trust. Presence/Being There -- even if it's only through email or phone. Affection. Cherishing.