Penelope Love

Last week, I met a perfect stranger in a cozy Costa Rican café built from someone’s old house. Perhaps it was the chipped-white window ledges with bright blue walls, the gentle creak of the wooden floors or the scent of freshly baked empanadas and coffee in the air-something put us right at home. Amidst such comfort, our brief encounter inspired a lifetime of profound reflections on the all-important question: What is a true friend?

Our meeting had been scheduled, and what transpired could not have been planned. Armed with banana coladas, Mae’s vegan black bean sandwich and a mountain of chicken fajitas with fried plantains, we casually began to discuss her memoir and the how-to of cultivating the courage and emotional awareness to put life’s most intensely raw experiences into words.

Though not typically present at client meetings, my husband joined us, sharing my fajitas and listening carefully to our discussion. Together the three of us connected over progressively more intimate details of our lives, nimbly morphing the café ambiance into one of sheer vulnerability. Low and behold, the topic of friendship surfaced and my husband at last chimed in: “Penelope and I don’t have a lot of friends.”

My  breath stopped and I think I might have blacked out to be stirred again only by a lump of unchewed fried cheese plunging toward my belly. The twisting of Mae’s brow reflected my distress perfectly. Yet all one can do in such a situation-especially with a potential client-is remember: “be present and speak from the heart,” which is exactly what happened as we not-long-ago strangers reflected on what is friendship.

So what makes a friend? Let’s make a list. Someone who keeps us from feeling our loneliness? Someone with whom we intoxicate ourselves via substances or entertainment in avoidance of feelings? Someone who tells us pleasantries about ourselves and acts charmed when we reciprocate? A secret confidant who indulges us in gossiping about others whom we avoid discussions with? Someone who gives us free advice?

In my observation, people zealously label others as friends based on having known them for a long time, or for whatever reason they were validated through our being drawn to them. And how do I know this? I’ve been there myself. Regardless, it seems fair to say people use the “f”-word to categorize familiar people. So how do we distinguish between a friend and an acquaintance?

If there is a motive of control or neediness by either party, can this constitute friendship? Because I’ve noticed that many “friendships”-particularly those that develop during crisis periods in our lives-have been forged from the mold of the advice-giver and the advice-receiver. Yet only time reveals that those relationships in no way should be considered friendships, particularly when the advice is not solicited. Sound familiar?

What I’ve learned: Whenever someone seems overly eager to give advice, their motives should be challenged. Precisely because the advice might not be the wisdom of experience, and in such cases, they could be experimenting with your life so as to not test it their own. In light of this possibility, the most loving counsel of a true friend is: asking questions with the intent of assisting one to find their own truth, rather than recycling Cosmo rhetoric and seizing the opportunity to appear superior, or at the very least more intelligent.

Here’s a key: Advice is usually sought by one who thinks they are not capable of recognizing the truth. So if we find ourselves on the giving end, perhaps it is wiser to look in a mirror and consider whether we’re confusing that friend with our projections, rather than supporting or accepting exactly who they are in each moment.

So what is the key ingredient in a friend?

They expect nothing and accept everything. There are no exceptions to this rule.

This considered, my husband’s surprise statement actually summed it up perfectly. Though as a writer, I may have taken a slightly more poetic approach, because true friends are like mangoes in the arctic and I can count them on one sticky hand. How about you?

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Penelope Love is a writer, publishing consultant and the former editor of Counselor: The Magazine for Addiction Professionals. She welcomes your e-mail at penelope@livinglovebooks.com.