Friends For … Life?
Friendships are vitally important. What makes for a good friend? How is a friendship different to other types of relationships - romantic, parental, sibling?
Here are two common misconceptions about strong friendships:
(1) A friend is always there for you, no matter what
(2) Once a friend, always a friend
(1) I think one of the things that makes friendship so valuable, and so resilient, is that it is part of friendship to seriously disagree. Strong friendship relies on an intimate and at the same time dispassionate view of another person. You have to know what makes them tick. You have to know them individually, deeply, personally.
This means you will also know their darkness. The things that they get wrong, misjudge, underestimate, overvalue, overreact to, underplay. A true friend will understand how these errors in judgement play out. They will know just how to respond - and it won’t always be support, or …
