What is a really good friend/friendship?

To me as I think of the people in my life who I consider to be really good friends, I think of people in my life who… are kind. Those who are forgiving of me for my faux pas which I’m afraid to say are many, according to those I have made a conscious choice and don’t have to consider as “good friends.”

My good friends are available; no, not in the immediate but sometime soon thereafter. They always come back to me and match the tone in which I am reaching out to them. If I’m concerned, they come from concern; if I am joyful, they are there with joyfulness to find out what’s going on for me; if I am sad, you bet, they are there and usually immediately to share in my sadness and allow my emotion to dissipate with the support of their compassion. My good friends reach out to me, in all of their various emotions and allow me to be there for them; they hear me as being a friend to them, whatever I might say or whatever mistakes I make. I am their good friend.

Perhaps I’ll share what I no longer see as a good friend. What doesn’t work for me is constant complaining about “why the world doesn’t commit itself” to making that person happy. I don’t see a good friendship as having the freedom to “dump on” each other; to constantly complain about what is not working in life. What doesn’t work with a good friend is a lack of 100%:100% sharing with each other but is rather one sided on their part… in other words, them reaching out for what I can do for them. It doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t work for me in a good friendship if someone is accepting gift after gift after gift, whether it be invitations to a party of mine, or networking by making sure those that don’t know are aware of my friend’s service, or maybe the sharing of nice clothes that I am giving away, or caring for their children, without true reciprocation of what it is that I may appreciate, whatever that might be. My good friends find out and make sure it is “put in” to our friendship, as I do for them.

A good friend will not assume I am “always that way” from a perspective that is no longer valid from when they first declared me THAT way. A good friend will not live from what no longer matters and can never be accurately recreated in the present moment. A good friend will complete it from inquiry or forgiveness or acceptance and joyfulness that our friendship has been preserved and enriched.

My really good friends are those that allow me to get angry and don’t take whatever it is personally but listen to what I’m angry about and discusses it so we both can see what doesn’t work for the two of us. A really good friend laughs with me, cries with me, gets mad at me and handles it with concern for our friendship, not from a righteousness that “I’d better do what they want me to or I’m the one endangering the friendship.” A good friend of mine asks about me, what’s going on with me, what I am doing lately, what I am happy about or not so happy about, asks about my challenges and how I am handling them.

My view on friendship extends to inherited “family” too. I don’t see that just having shared a bloodline gives one the assumption that we have to stay connected. I will only accept people into my life who are willing to be good friends. Before my father passed, he and I became very good friends over the last 30 years. He was always there for me, in moments when I needed him; and I was always there for him. We were more than two people who had the same bloodline, we were friends. My stepmother and I have been the best of friends for many, many years, sharing woes and concerns and upsets and joy and laughter and there is nothing I can’t share with her, and nothing she can’t share with me. Most importantly, we are always both in the present moment in our sharing. A good friend trusts me and I trust a good friend.

That reminds me, a good friend will “complete” the past with me and accept it as complete. A good friend might bring up things that didn’t work for them, from the past, with the intention of taking ownership of their own perspective and look for a way that we can put the past clearly in the past. My good friends and I live in our present, looking forward to our future.

What about you? What is a good friendship, what is a good friend to you?