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How do you know if a "friend" is a friend?

An acquaintance is someone you greet now and again, maybe flash them a quick smile. But if you never see each other again, that's fine with both people. The expectation and emotional investment is very little, if any. A friend is someone who 1) respects you, 2) helps you (and sincerely want to help you) in times of need, 3) will stop what they are doing to listen to talk to you/console you/encourage you (assuming what they're doing isn't urgent or top priority), 3) remember the weirdest, most irrelevant details about you (something that was said years ago), 4) they show and tell you that they care, 5) you can tell them anything because you know they won't judge you or go around spilling your secrets, and (last but certainly not least) 6) will help you grow as a person as you help them to grow as a person. A true friend doesn't use what they know about you to hurt you or to create gossip. There is no manipulation in friendship, there's nothing fake about friendship. And it's a two-way street. It's mutual. One person being emotionally clingy and/or dependent on a person . . . this is NOT friendship (because there is no reciprocation). To be a friend and to have a friend means know each other well, to appreciate each other's qualities, to express genuine interest, and keep that interest and interaction alive. There is an equal giving and taking in friendship. Friendship shouldn't be uncomfortable. Really, it comes down to their motive. A friend is a person who genuinely wants to talk to you and listen to you. And a best friend is someone who knows you at your best and knows you at your worst, and then knows (or asks) how to cheer you up. Basically, if you have to ask yourself if a person is a friend, chances are, they're not.
 
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That's a good question...
Have had enemies who treated me like their best friend.
and best friends who treated me like their enemies.

I guess if they jump in front of a bullet that was headed for you... then maybe... unless they're suicidal and/or your rich and they were wearing a BP vest and staged the event for some $.

In the end you can't know... people just believe. "This is my friend = I believe this person is my friend." Those that claim to know ignore the dark aspects or are in denial of them for the favorable belief already in place.
 
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I had never really thought about this question before, until I saw this thread. But then I realised that I have had this dilemma all my life. I have never felt comfortable referring to anyone as being a friend, because I always fear that they would perhaps only think of me as an acquaintance. I always feel it would be too presumptuous of me to call somebody a friend, at least not unless I had discussed it with them. But I wouldn't know how to broach the subject, and so I am never sure what to think.
 
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