My bestest best friend is someone I met in fourth grade. Even in elementary school, we fought a lot. It would be a lot of her upsetting me and then apologizing to me later about it. In the 16 years I’ve known her, it’s very rare that I’m the one pissing her off. Our relationship is the main reason why I tell people it’s necessary to fight with those you love. If you never fight, how will you know what you have is real? I have had many “friends” I would fight with once, and that would be the end of our friendship. Our bond wasn’t strong enough to last a petty argument.

She told me about another one of her friends who knew her husband was the one when she got really sick and he was there by her side. I told her that’s bullshit. It’s easy to care about someone and take care of them when they need you. It’s much harder to stay with someone when one or both of you are bored with your lives. It’s more of a test to stay with someone when you’re mad at them. What happens when you don’t need each other anymore? Will you still want to be around that person?

One of my friends (J) recently had problem with another friend (K). K basically wrote J a really long e-mail about how she’s a terrible friend. I read the e-mail, and what K said about J seemed true. J is very flaky, and she does a lot of things without explanation. I told J, “Yeah, you are a bad friend, but I love you anyway.” It seemed to me that K wanted J to be something she is not, and that they weren’t compatible at all. J still wanted to talk to K about it. J’s rationality also pissed K off, but I think it saved their friendship.

I also empathized with K because what K and J had been going through seemed similar to what I and another friend were going through. The biggest difference turned out to be that my friend didn’t give a shit about me or our friendship. I don’t even understand what happened or why it ended except that she got new friends and didn’t need me anymore. I told J, “You know, you actually aren’t a bad friend because you talked to K. You wanted to do what you can to stay her friend. That shows you care. Just the fact that you care means you’re a good friend. You’re a friend when it matters.” J jokingly said, “No, I really am a bad friend.” Then I told her about my “friend”, and she agreed that it sounds like she doesn’t care.

All of my closest friends have been my friends for at least five years, and what they all have in common is that they love me and accept the good and the bad. They don’t run away when my crazy gets severe, in fact they all want to help, and some of them are crazy themselves and can empathize. I have had huge arguments and falling outs with most of them, and they all made efforts to make up, and they mattered to me enough that I let them back in. We can talk to each other about anything, and love each other more for the extreme shit that makes other people go, “WTF?” They care about me no matter what and vice versa. I would do anything for them. Some of them have caused me extreme misery, but real friends understand it won’t always be rainbows and butterflies. The point is real friends care, and that’s all that matters.