(Here’s a quick side lesson: if you want to know who your real friends are, start telling your craziest idea to everyone you meet. Some people will slowly back away from you as if you really are crazy, but others will latch on to your idea and help you any way they can. The people in the second group are your real friends.) ~ Chris Guillebeau, World Domination

I beat myself up for years thinking I was a terrible friend to others because I did not live up to their ideals.

I’m not blaming them directly – I think most of them genuinely liked me. But on the whole we were friends because of outside factors, based on where we met or what music we liked or the jobs we shared. I never felt truly comfortable around many of them, because I thought they would laugh at things I take seriously, and take seriously things I think are absurd. I always felt one step away from their condemnation.

One of my best friends from college turned paranoid and bitter, and cut me out of her life rather ruthlessly three times. Each time was without warning, and with no dialogue about our circumstances. Given the years I spent hiding from the world around me in an effort to avoid my problems, there were times when she needed me and I was not there for her. I feel terrible about that, and when given the chance spent time and money I did not really have to go out and help her through a difficult period in her life. I loved her as a friend, almost as a sister, and I still do.

So the first two times she axed me from her life, I actually begged for her to give me another chance.

The third time I let her sign off. I had nothing left to offer her, I think, and she had concocted elaborate fantasies of how I was actually in cahoots with her ex-husband and was spying on her. At that point I realized: what the fuck was I trying to prove?

I have issues, and I have dealt with them badly sometimes; true friends understand that and allow for my mistakes. I have dreams and goals, and they are unconventional and nonconformist; true friends support those risks. Which always brings me back to my friend Laura, who is supportive and kind and the best cheerleader and philosophical helpmeet anyone could ever hope for. She taught me a lot about what true friendship is, and whenever I show up on her door – no matter how long I’ve been gone – she invites me in for food and wine and excellent conversation.

Friendship is not, of course, all about what other people do for you. But it IS about acceptance and trust and support. Telling people what they wanted to hear only ended with mutual unhappiness; being myself, no matter the cost, has given me some of the most fantastic friends a person could ever hope to have, people who support my crazy nuts ideas and who need me in their lives for what I, as a person, can offer them – not because I match some external ideal of what a friend is supposed to be or do.

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