thoughts about real friends
While I usually dislike debating semantics, recently, I’ve found myself wondering more and more about the definition of a good friend.1 When I was younger, this question was rather uninteresting. A friend was someone you wanted to socialize with. At the time, this meant it was the people I played tag with at recess and shared a table with at lunch.
But, as we age, the definition—like life—loses its simplicity and becomes beautifully complex. Our mothers and fathers cease to be flawless heroes and become human. Similarly, we mature. We encounter new friends, and with them, our behavior adapts and shifts.
Amongst studious friends, we may be diligent. Amongst our laid-back friends, less so. Through conventional wisdom and the social sciences,2 it’s no secret that our friends have an immense impact on our behavior and the type of person we ultimately become. We naturally measure and judge ourselves in relation to our friends. They can—and often do—serve as a benchmark for proper behavior and functioning. This purpose and phenomenon are particularly noticeable in children, who often protest, “But [my friend] doesn’t have to do chores/follow rules/study/etc.!” This observation then begs the question: What sorts of friends should we strive to associate ourselves with?3 In other words, what is the chief necessary condition4 for a good friend?
If we care about leading successful lives, being friends with the most competent people seems to be the most intuitive answer. Be amongst the successful, measure your abilities with their laurels, and prosper. I find this answer hollow. Being around the competent and successful will bring their fortune to you,5 but this criterion is limiting and fails to capture the essence of friendship. More to the point, I’m certain you can think of several incompetent people who you would consider good friends. No, competence cannot be the chief necessary condition for a good friend.
When I was in elementary school, there were two virtues: speed and snark. These values, informed by the friends I had at the time, defined the person I was. I thought of and cared little for anything beyond those “virtues.” As much as any elementary student could be mediocre, I was. Middle school brought change. My school district partitions students into two separate middle school/high school complexes determined by geographical location. By chance, I was assigned to a separate school from all my friends. Left alone, I redefined myself.
I found new passions and focused on academics, transforming myself into someone careful and methodical.6 While some of these changes stem from the natural transitions of middle school, I’m convinced that the split from my elementary school friends was pivotal. Sloth begets sloth and without that catalyst, my trajectory would have remained ostensibly uninspired.
Charting a new path, I encountered new friends. They were ambitious, admirable, and aimed upwards. But above all, their most compelling quality was their sincere desire for my well-being. True friendship, I realized, isn’t about shared interests or constant companionship, but about selflessly wanting the best for one another. A friend who cannot do so is no friend at all.
This observation may seem obvious, but two implications are derived from it. First, you must share comparable values with your friends. This matters because “wishing the best” is meaningless if their conception of the “best” differs substantively from yours. A friend who genuinely believes mediocrity is an ideal wishing the best would be harmful (assuming you are ambitious). The sentiment of “wishing for the best” is not enough, their aspiration for your success must align with your own definition of excellence. Secondarily, friends must be capable of selflessness. Without selflessness, when others succeed, you would be left with resentment and an internal “it should be me.” It is thus a prerequisite for wishing the best for others. If one cannot celebrate your victories sans jealousy or competition, they cannot be a real friend.
Seek friends that wish the best for you, and the second order goods derived from this trait. With my friends, I’ve grown and reoriented myself. My success has been their success; and theirs, mine. Without them, I would be lesser. As Kanye West captured in The Life of Pablo: “Real friends, how many of us? // It’s not many of us, we smile at each other.”
This inquiry was largely inspired by a routine dental checkup a few weeks ago. My dentist—making small talk—asked about my friendships. His probing went beyond curiosity; as a father of a son in elementary school, he was concerned about the company of his child and was curious about friendships I’d found most fruitful. This work is a refinement of that conversation and the thoughts I had while speaking with him.↩
There are dozens if not hundreds of papers covering this topic, but I will include one here: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190520-how-your-friends-change-your-habits---for-better-and-worse↩
And perhaps more importantly, what friends should we wish for our children.↩
I phrase it as I did since there are many necessary conditions, but I would like to focus on the major “one.”↩
Directly, through the connections you form, or indirectly, through the motivation and talent they inspire.↩
Reconnecting with my elementary school friends years later, they found me unrecognizable.↩