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Chapter 2

What Is a Friend?

“In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. They keep the young out of mischief; they comfort and aid the old in their weakness, and they incite those in the prime of life to noble deeds.”

— Aristotle

We’ve gotten lazy with the word “friend” in the past few years. A word that used to mean a person you were close to, or “the family you choose for yourself,” has become slang for anyone (and everyone) we know. “Can you recommend a plumber?” I have a friend… “Do you know anyone who goes to that gym?” I have a friend…

Of course, these people aren’t really friends. They may be nice enough, but they’re only people we are familiar with through life or social media — people whose names and faces we happen to know.

Our grandparents used to call such people acquaintances, and I’m all for breathing new life into that word. There’s nothing wrong with being an acquaintance and not a friend. It simply means that you’re not invested in each other’s lives. I don’t know my plumber’s favorite movie, where he hopes to retire, or anything about his family. I do know that he snakes a mean drain, that he’s fast and efficient when the pipes go wonky, and that he charges me reasonable prices. I don’t really need to know my plumber any better than that. He seems to be a nice guy, but he’s not my friend.

I’m also not friends with my next-door neighbor, the guy who mows the grass, most of the people on my social media “friend lists,” or even my best friend from junior high school. Thanks to modern technology, I may be able to tell you what they ate for dinner last night and where they went on their last vacation, but that knowledge merely creates an illusion of companionship. None of us actually knows each other as people. “Liking” someone’s Facebook posts and posting birthday greetings when social media prompts us to do so is not the same as a real relationship, and somewhere inside of us we all know that.

So, what is a friend? Simply put, it’s someone to spend time with, enjoy, depend on — someone with whom you share your life. It looks so simple on paper, but a deep friendship can actually be a very complex relationship. Part of that stems from the fact that there’s a wide range of people between those we just happen to know of, an acquaintance, and the kind of friend Aristotle called “one soul in two bodies.”

Work friends

After acquaintances, most people we know tend to fall into the “work friend” category. Our work friends are the people we hang out with because we have one or more activities which regularly place us in close proximity. We’re at the same place at the same time, so we chat and hang out because they are convenient to talk to or to do stuff with. They are people we probably wouldn’t choose to hang out with on our own, but when in Rome … : the girl in your history class you grab a coffee with while you compare notes and study for the next exam, the coworker who may be a little older or younger than you but is also the only other normal person in your department, the only other mom at gymnastics class with no makeup and a messy ponytail who’s not talking about when her three-year-old is going to be an Olympic gold medalist — these are your people of the moment and your sanity in the midst of craziness.

While they’re great for inside jokes and snarky commentary for now, they’re probably not going to last beyond graduation, your next job change, or your princess deciding she’s really more into karate than gymnastics. There will be many of these temporary friends during your life. You’ll pick them up and then set them down again once your paths diverge, and there won’t be any hard feelings about it. The glue that held you together will be gone. Five years from now, you’ll see them online or at the grocery store and wrack your brain to remember: “I know I know that guy, but what was his name?” Don’t worry about it, because that person will be doing exactly the same thing when he sees you.

Your kids’ friends’ parents or your spouse’s/significant other’s friends

The parents of your children’s friends and your husband or wife’s friends are work friends who deserve their own category. You’re going to be spending a significant amount of time with them whether you like it or not. You may not even have anything in common with them except that your kids are inseparable or you both like hanging out with your husband. Well, suck it up, because your opinion doesn’t really matter here.

You’re not in charge of these relationships, and it is likely you’re in for the long haul. You’re going to be emotionally invested in their families and welfare because it will directly affect your kids or your spouse. Hopefully, they’re going to be cool, and y’all can just hang out, swapping embarrassing stories and stupid internet memes. If you’re lucky, they’ll move beyond the work-friend territory and become your friends in their own right. If not, that’s okay, too.

Your inner circle

Work friends are great, but when we’re assembling our inner circle, we look for a little bit more. We look for people to fill specific roles in our life, just as they are looking for people to fill roles in theirs. It may not even be an on-purpose decision, but it happens all the same. If someone posed the question, “Who is he to you?” your brain would think, “Now that you mention it …”

When you are looking around for a new BFF, some of it is up to chemistry, but don’t think that it isn’t an intentional decision. Making friends is one skill, and choosing them is quite another. Picking the right people to be close to you is very important. The people we surround ourselves with rub off on us. We pick up quirks and habits, sayings and attitudes from them. We tell our children to be mindful of the crowd they run around with, and we need to do exactly the same thing.

When we’re looking for friends, we all want people who are honest, understand our sense of humor, and stand by us. We don’t usually think about the roles they are going to end up playing in our lives, but we should. We all have a few key slots to fill in our posse; here are a few of the most common:

The Sage

Oh, wise one, tell me what you know.

We all need people in our lives who are smart, inspiring, honest, and give great advice. These aren’t the friends you take on wild adventures, but they can be counted on for a trip to the coffee shop and hours of deep conversation. We all need at least one friend who is a little older, more experienced, better read, or just flat-out willing to tell us the ugly, unvarnished truth. That’s why we all need a sage.

Stuff is going to happen, and you’ll need to be able to rely on the wisdom of someone else, because your own brain just isn’t working or you have no clue what’s going on. We need a friend that we can ask. Sometimes, we need to hear harsh truths from someone whose opinion we trust. That’s why we need the smart, honest friend. The sage is the friend who will tell you that you can’t make a living at underwater basket weaving no matter how good you are at it, and that maybe you should be pursuing a more practical career and not a hobby. She will also be the person who tells you that accounting is sucking the life out of you; that a girl who reads neuroscience books for fun might want to do something with that instead. When everyone you know just adores the boyfriend you’ve broken up and gotten back together with a dozen times, this is the friend who will tell you to knock off the games and get rid of both the drama and the loser guy, because you’re too smart and pretty to be wasting your time this way. This is the friend who will have the courage to tell you that your life is a mess and maybe you need therapy more than new video games or clothes. He or she will like you enough to be brutally, and constructively, honest. He simply wants what is best for you and has no time for anyone standing in the way of that — even if the person in the way is you.

If you don’t have a sage, go find one. If you are the sage for your friends, Godspeed, my friend. Keep reading, learning, and paying attention. The rest of us would fall apart without your wisdom.

The Bold Adventurer

As great as it sounds to spend the weekend in your jammies curled up on the couch binge-watching the entire series of Gilmore Girls, that’s not really a life. Think how sad that would sound as an epitaph! That’s why we need our adventurous friends. Our favorite adrenaline junkies drag us out of our comfort zone every chance they get. They drink deeply from the experiences of life and want to try almost everything at least once before they die.

While some of us feel the need to map out a plan and cover all the contingencies before we act, this friend just boldly leaps. She encourages us to stop focusing on being safe or indulging in our perfectionist tendencies to only do things when we can do them “right.” Her life motto is “Throw caution to the wind, grab a wild hair, and just go!”

Your bold-adventurer friend sees exactly how big the world is and aches to explore it all. Yes, she can tire you out, but it’s totally worth it. She’s the reason you finally ate sushi, joined a gym, climbed a mountain, and floated down the Frio River. Exhausting, but worth it, this friend will lead you through hairbrained adventures whose tales you’ll be regaling your grandchildren with in years to come, or will merely get you off the couch into the bright sunshine. You’re not a mole, and sunlight is a very good thing.

The Holy One

“Did you go to Mass this weekend?” “Can I pray for you?” “Can I pray with you?” God bless our holy friends. Compared with the adventurous friend, this one can seem a little tame by comparison, but don’t be fooled. There is a depth and beauty to this friendship you won’t find anywhere else. My holy friends are the ones I turn to when life gets wickedly hard and I need a reminder that I’m not alone. There is great comfort in knowing that whatever crud I’m mired in at the moment is just for the moment. As my favorite holy friend often reminds me: “I read the Book, and it all turns out right in the end. If it’s not right, then this isn’t the end.” That kind of wisdom, the hours of deep soul-searching conversation, and the insistent nudge in the right direction make this friend a necessary one to have.

Your holy friend lives each day as if it’s his last because he knows tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone. He’s constantly striving for heaven and would like nothing more than to have you walk the straight and narrow with him. If we become a reflection on the people around us, who couldn’t stand to be a bit holier?

The Best Friend/Soul Mate

If my husband is part of my heart, my best friend is a big chunk of my soul. There are days when she’s the only reason I’m sane. On days when the children are wild, dinner is burned, and the bank account is empty, she’s the magic that keeps me going. Fourteen years of friendship and counting, she knows that I am one big old hot mess and still loves me anyway. She’s the person I call while I’m waiting on the pregnancy test results, and I provide a voice of calm when she’s waiting on hers. She’s my confidante and conscience, my favorite cheerleader, and the team I always root for.

We only have room for one or two of these friends in our life at any given time, and to lose a best friend can feel like an amputation, as though you’ve lost a necessary part of yourself. These are the few rare friends who manage to cross over into becoming family, the ones we really, deeply love, and they become a part of our soul.

There’s more to a group of friends than just having stuff in common, hanging out together, and having a good time. Have you ever thought about what it is that your friends love and appreciate about you? We all have our own place within our groups of friends, our own special niche to fill. Have you ever thought about who you are to the people you hang out with, and whether your people are acquaintances or something more?

Are you the mentor or the sage? Do your friends come to you for advice or for you to help them with life skills? Are you the comforter or the clown? Are you the caretaker or the adventurous one? If you’re trying to talk everyone into climbing Mount Kilimanjaro next summer, or joining you in a CrossFit class, it may be blindingly obvious. If you’re on your knees praying for the people you love and reminding them to get to confession, you probably have an idea who you are within your social groups. You may be filling one specific role, or a mishmash of three or four. The important thing isn’t the label concerning where you fit in your relationships, but that you are in a role you’re comfortable filling.

The people who make up our lives — the acquaintances, friends, work friends, and soul mates — are the connections that make up the fabric of our lives. We invest in others’ lives and get happily tangled up in all of the big and small things that accompany that investment. These people add their own spicy flavor to our lives and help us to discover the person we never knew we always wanted to be.