Friendship. That is how so many things seem to start, and sometimes how they end too, right? I have been thinking about it lately, although not in the dramatic “I have outgrown everyone and now I live alone in the mountains” sort of way. More in the quieter sense of wondering what actually makes someone a good friend.
We analyse romantic relationships constantly. We make checklists around chemistry, compatibility, attachment styles, communication, emotional availability, red flags, green flags, beige flags. At this point, dating has so many flags it could qualify as a United Nations summit. Friendship, however, seems to operate on a much looser system. We mostly go by vibes, history and the comforting weight of statements like, “She has been my friend for ten years,” or “He has known me since school,” as though longevity itself is proof of closeness.
I am not sure it should be.
Knowing someone for a long time means exactly that: you have known them for a long time. It does not automatically mean they understand you, support you, respect you or even particularly like the person you have become, or the person you may become in the future. Sometimes people remain in our lives because they still fit us, and sometimes they remain simply because they have always been there. Those are not necessarily the same thing.
I think every relationship begins with some kind of performance. Not dishonesty exactly, but editing. When we first meet someone, we usually show them the version of ourselves that feels easiest to like. We laugh a little more, listen carefully, remember details and choose our words properly. We do not immediately reveal that we are capable of spending three hours overthinking a message that simply says “okay.” We are essentially on our best behaviour.
Romantic relationships make this obvious because eventually the honeymoon period ends and somebody discovers that the person they thought was mysterious is actually just terrible at replying to messages. Friendship works the same way, except we rarely talk about it. At some point, people stop auditioning, and I think that is when the real relationship begins.
What happens when neither of you is trying particularly hard to impress the other person anymore? Can you sit together without filling every silence? Can you disagree without quietly keeping score? Can one person grow without the other treating that growth like abandonment? Can you say, “That hurt me,” without suddenly finding yourself in a courtroom drama where both sides have brought evidence from 2017?
That, to me, is where friendship becomes interesting. People often talk about friendship as though it is somehow purer than romantic love, less complicated and less demanding, but I am not convinced. Friendship can contain almost everything romance does: attachment, jealousy, loyalty, resentment, intimacy, expectation, disappointment and affection. The difference is that we give friendship much less language.
If your partner never makes time for you, never initiates, never asks how you are and only calls when they need something, everyone will tell you to examine the relationship. If a friend behaves exactly the same way, we sometimes shrug and say, “That is just how they are.” Apparently emotional unavailability becomes charming once there is no kissing involved.
Maybe that is why I keep coming back to the question of what actually makes a friendship good. Is it chemistry? Because chemistry exists in friendship too. There are people you meet and immediately click with. Conversation is easy, you laugh at the same ridiculous things and somehow end up talking until 2am even though you originally planned to have one coffee. Then there are people who are objectively lovely, kind and decent, but every conversation feels like trying to start a car with a dead battery. Nobody has done anything wrong; the connection simply does not move.
So chemistry matters, but chemistry alone is not enough. We know this from romance. Half the films ever made are basically two people with exceptional chemistry making questionable decisions for two hours. Kadhalum Kadandhu Pogum had chemistry, but chemistry was never really the whole point there either.
Then there is familiarity, which can be incredibly comforting. There is something deeply reassuring about people who knew you before you became the current version of yourself; people who remember your questionable hairstyles, terrible exes, embarrassing phases and the years when your entire personality revolved around one band. Old friendships carry history, and history can be beautiful because you do not have to explain everything.
Sometimes all it takes is one look across the room and both of you already know exactly what is happening. It is almost telepathic, very Lord of the Rings fellowship energy. You have survived things together. You know who panics, who carries snacks, who makes bad decisions and who is most likely to wander into Mordor because “it cannot be that bad.”
But familiarity can also fool us. Sometimes someone feels safe simply because they are known, not because the relationship is healthy. We mistake recognition for compatibility and stay connected to people who belong very naturally to an earlier version of ourselves, even when the current version has moved somewhere else.
And that is where alignment comes in. Alignment is less romantic than chemistry and less sentimental than familiarity, but it is probably more important than both. Do your values make sense together? Do your expectations of friendship resemble each other? Can you celebrate each other without competition, give each other space without turning it into punishment and be honest without using honesty as an excuse to be cruel? Can you repair things when they break, and can you allow the friendship to change shape without treating every change as a threat?
Because friendships do change. Some people go from everyday friends to once-a-month friends. Some go from constant conversation to occasional check-ins. Some remain emotionally close even when life gets busy, while others slowly become people you mostly remember fondly. I do not think every friendship that changes has failed. Sometimes a friendship has simply completed the version of itself that existed for that period of your life.
That sounds very philosophical, but really it is just adulthood. People move, marry, have children, change jobs, become exhausted and become different. And sometimes, very quietly, people stop being compatible.
I think we struggle with this more in friendship because ending or changing a friendship can feel strangely dramatic. Romantic relationships have break-ups. Friendships have prolonged silence, muted Instagram stories and eventually someone asking, “Eh, are you two still close?” which is somehow much more awkward.
But perhaps friendship deserves the same intentionality we bring to romance. Not in a transactional way. I do not want to start conducting annual performance reviews with my friends and saying, “Thank you for attending. Your emotional support has been strong this quarter, but unfortunately your response time needs improvement.” Although, admittedly, some people would benefit from minutes being taken.
What I mean is that perhaps we should occasionally ask ourselves why certain people are still in our lives. Not to eliminate anyone who fails to meet some imaginary standard, but simply to understand the connection. Do I feel known here? Do I feel respected? Do I feel like I can grow? Do I enjoy this person as they are now, or am I mostly attached to who we used to be?
And maybe the most important question is this: who am I when I am with them?
Because I think that tells us more than almost anything else. Some people bring out a version of us that is relaxed, ridiculous and completely unguarded. Some make us feel twelve years old again. Some make us defensive, some make us perform, and some make us feel like we constantly have to prove our worth.
Then there are the rare people around whom you simply exist. No audition, no strategy, no trying to be particularly interesting. You can talk about something profound, spend twenty minutes discussing what to eat and then sit in complete silence without wondering whether the relationship is dying.
Maybe that is the friendship we are actually looking for. Not necessarily the person who has known us longest, the person we speak to every day or even the person who understands every part of us. Perhaps a good friend is simply someone with whom familiarity, chemistry and alignment exist in enough balance that neither person has to constantly fight for the connection.
Someone who knows enough of you to challenge you, likes enough of you to stay and respects enough of you to let you keep changing.
History can explain a friendship, but it cannot automatically justify one. And perhaps being known is not about someone having access to every chapter of your life. Maybe it is about being able to turn the page without worrying that the person beside you only liked the previous version.
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