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02 February 2006

What are the qualties you think makes someone a good friend? Are you a good friend? Do you have lots and lots of casual friends, or are you the type who would rather have one or two really close friends (or any combination thereof)?
I'd say I'm a good friend: loyal, spontaneous, and generous. I'm pretty good at keeping in touch.

The most important quality in friends for me is: easy to be around. I enjoy people who are smart, full of conversation, and don't bring a lot of drama or grandstanding into the friendship. I also like people who take an outward focus -- people who talk about ideas, events, memories, news, music, phenomena, whatever. I don't much enjoy talking about other people, gossiping, or analyzing other people's relationships.

I've got a few very close friends, and then a wide panoply of more casual friends. The close friends are limited in number, because you want to maintain those friendships most carefully and that takes more time. I do keep track of friends from earlier phases of my life, for the most part, and it's great when you take that kind of friendship and pick up wherever you left off, even if you haven't seen them in a few years.

In very close friendships, trustworthiness and mutual support are really important qualities. I look for really stable people as close friends and try to avoid building close friendships with people who are working out a lot of issues or don't have a good sense of self.
posted by Miko 02 February | 13:08
I have lots of casual friends and some very close ones, too. I like having both. The first means that you're rarely at a loss for company or conversation, the second ensures that there will be people around for you when things get rough.
posted by jonmc 02 February | 13:09
A good friend should be too patient or lazy to take action when they get tired of your shit.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 02 February | 13:22
this is a hard one for me, because I test my friends patience a lot because I have a very intense personality sometimes.

Good friends see you for what you are, not for what they need from you. Good friends see the best in you and encourage it, and call you on your crap for the rest.

Also, good friends always have snacks.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 02 February | 13:31
Good friends do whatever they want. It's what they don't do that's important: good friends don't betray one another in any way.
posted by Hugh Janus 02 February | 13:36
Good friends see you for what you are, not for what they need from you.

On the other hand, I've spent the last few years paring down friendships that bring me nothing. Even if it's just that you make me laugh, you have to do something for me. I've become pretty merciless about that and my life is better for it.


posted by jrossi4r 02 February | 13:54
Honesty but not that brutal honesty crap that's just an excuse to be rude.

A good friend is someone you can call, anytime of the day or night if you need them and they will come and help you.

Good friends call you on your bullshit if you're spewing and also make sure you get home safely if you've been drinking too much.

But they are also as likely to shave your eyebrows and draw on your passed out body with magic markers.

Good friends enhance your life.
posted by fenriq 02 February | 13:59
I'm a totally sucky friend, never remember birthdays, hate to ring people on the phone, never send holiday cards, but luckily all my friends are the types that are really really good at keeping touch. In fact, I can't get rid of them.
posted by dabitch 02 February | 14:06
A good friend will help you move. A true friend will help you move a body.
posted by matildaben 02 February | 14:08
A good friend is someone you can not see for 5 years, and upon seeing them again it takes 3 minutes for everything to feel normal again. And in 10 minutes you wonder, for the 100th time, why you live on the other side of the world from them.

(the 3 minutes is the time to make a gin and tonic)

(and I'm gonna see them - my two best friends - again in 4 weeks!)
posted by gaspode 02 February | 14:13
I think it might be a Garrison Kiellor quote -- I can't remember. But it goes something like, "A friend is someone who, if you called them at 2 AM to say "I need you to help me bury a body", would grab a shovel."

As much as I don't endorse aiding and abetting murder, I do endorse the basic sentiment: utter loyalty. Of course, if I got that phone call, I would have the shovel ready but I would also be all "WTF?." There better be a really good explanation.

I've done the jrossi thing on a couple of memorable occasions. When people drain me, or make me hurt, they need to be out of my life. I try to allow only good influences. But that's not to say I can't be patient or compassionate in friendships which contain that nugget of goodness. In fact, that's essential. It's just that some people have such needs that they eventually use you as a place to dump their crap. That's no good.

posted by Miko 02 February | 14:15
p.s. I posted my comment after miko's Keillor comment. It was the weird post-move time snafu that makes it look like it was earlier.
posted by matildaben 02 February | 15:29
I think a good friend is someone you've accumulated a lot of good experiences with. The casual friends are ones you only have a few good experiences with. What I think is a good experience hasn't always been the same, so I don't think I make friends the same way I used to. I am happier.

Like jrossi4r, I've gotten rid of some friends over the years. I've worried about that. But I guess you can't deny the evidence if someone only turns out to be a fair weather friend. I want to stick by people through thick and thin, but if not if things are thin all the time.
posted by halonine 02 February | 18:34
I am a great friend as I, not only helped a friend move apartments, I did it at night and in the pouring Portland rain we have been having of late. *toot toot goes my horn*
I am also a good friend for many other reasons but this occured on monday night.
posted by miles 02 February | 20:02
Yikes...I don't want to sound like I'm some badass loner. Quite the contrary. I'm extremely lucky to have such fantastic friends and there's nothing I wouldn't do for them. But every relationship I maintain just to be "nice" takes time and energy away from my real friends, so I try to be more selective. Hope that makes sense.
posted by jrossi4r 02 February | 20:51
There's a lot of people who kick a lot of ass in my life.

I work on the theory that they know this, and understand that no hard feelings, but I'm crazy busy. (slightly less so of late, but I still do a near-obscene amount of work.)

I agree with gaspode, in that my best friends are all people who I can be away from for years at a time, with little/no contact, and it's like old times again before the first beer is finished.
posted by mosch 02 February | 21:55
It depends on how much they cost.

if I can buy in bulk, it's a different story.
posted by orthogonality 03 February | 01:55
I have no friends.

Actually, I have a couple of true friends, although I see them only rarely. I think the real test of friendship is the "grab a shovel" test. I have found in the past that some people clain to be your friend but, when the chips are down, are nowhere to be found. With the few friends that I have (as opposed to people I just know or spend time with), I know that, no matter that I haven't called them for a year and haven't seen them for twice that, would be at the door with a shovel before I had put the phone down. One of the reasons they would do that is that they know, if it were them calling me, I would be there for them just as fast. Loyalty is everything. I am loyal if nothing else. I am also independant and would probably not ring anyone to bring a shovel, I would struggle through and get the body buried by myself.

It's kind of sad that those who I relate to most closely and who I spend more time with than anyone apart from work colleagues and family are those on MeFi/MeCha. Kind of sad, but not really, because I know there are at least a couple that would grab a virtual shovel for me if I asked. The sad part is that I will never actually meet any of them.
posted by dg 03 February | 03:41
dg: why will you never actually meet? It's possible, isn't it?

I'm a bit surprised that, after a year of MetaLife, I actually feel the same -- there are people in this community I would call about a shovel. Who I haven't met in the flesh. Which is pretty interesting.

By the way: I have decided to jettison the expression "in RL", and replace it with "ITF" for "in the flesh." I think it's more accurate (when I'm reading and writing shit to people online, it IS real life), and more pleasant than "meatspace", which just makes me think of a butcher shop.
posted by Miko 03 February | 11:01
Add me to the list of people that would call on some of this community for a shovel, miko and dg. It's interesting - I was indulging in a bit of gloomy "what's the worst thing that could happen?"-ing the other day (answer = something bad happening to mr. g) and came to the conclusion that, in addition to my ITF (i like that, miko) friends, there would be people here I would turn to. I didn't know whether to be comforted or slightly creeped out by that realisation, but there it is.

jrossi4r - you don't come across as cold. I totally agree with you. I've jettisoned "friends" like that before. Emotional vampires, you don't need them.

posted by gaspode 03 February | 11:10
Four maxims from La Rochefoucauld come to mind:

We can love nothing that does not harmonize with us, and we are only following our taste and pleasure when we choose our friends for ourselves. Nevertheless, it is only through this preference that friendship can be true and perfect.

What makes us like new acquaintances is not so much the weariness we feel for our old friends or the pleasure of change, as the displeasure of not being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well, and the hope of being seen in a good light by those who do not know us as well.

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and the one that we take the least care of all to acquire.

However rare true love might be, true friendship is even rarer.


Some people bring out more from you than others. For these individuals, you are far wittier, wiser, kinder and more thoughtful. The people who bring out the best in you are among your true friends. Hold on to them--they are few and far between.

Another order of true friends are the people who will take you in when you have no place to go. Those friends are the rarest of all in my experience.
posted by y2karl 03 February | 11:55
MFK Fisher || Metachat Goes Down.

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