6 Things I Look For in a Ride-or-Die Friend
Coming from someone who was taught to view friendship as a liability
Oh, hi, my friend!
How ya doing? Before we get further into friendship…I want to share the sweetest comment I received from reader and community member Keri Kelly. Your comments remind me I am not screaming into the void and that means…everything.
And now, let’s get into it…
I Did Not Know To Have Friends. At All.
I recently did a (small) reader survey and asked about the topics you want to work through and heal, so you can ENJOY YOUR ONE LIFE, and one of your comments felt so, SO close to my own experience that I decided to take it on today. Here is what this reader wrote, anonymously:
“The struggle with friendships as an adult. I feel like everyone else has ‘best friends’ and I definitely do not. Am I a bad friend? I feel really lonely sometimes and it sounds weird and childish. But honest.”
My heart really felt for this reader because I MYSELF felt, for a long, long time, like not only did I not have besties (and everyone else did), but also, that I was just kind of too broken to have friends…
Friends seemed…dangerous
You see, growing up, my parents treated friendship like a liability. Someone you trusted today was someone who could betray you tomorrow. My godmother (Suzanne Somers by the way, kind of wild right?) was BFF with my mom one day, then in a lawsuit and not speaking to me the next.
My dad’s best friend from growing up in Milwaukee? He was his ride-or-die until we were banned from saying the friend’s name in the house. Still have no idea what happened there!
My parents cycled through relationships with so much suspicion and drama that I absorbed a lesson without even realizing it: friends are not only unnecessary, they are dangerous.
But…I was lonely and really, really wanted real friends. So, at 25, when I was starting my re-parenting journey, I sat down with the exact question, “Am I a bad friend?” and did what I always do when something isn’t quite working: I wrote about it.
In My Journal, I Did an Honest Accounting
Truly - did I suck? Honestly? Was I a good friend to Al when her mom died and I didn’t go to the funeral because I had to work? Was I a good friend when Isabelle was having a mental breakdown about a guy named Sin-jin Saint John (real name, real person), and I dropped everything I was doing to burn his apartment down in our minds? Yes, yes, I was.
I listed my friends and how I had shown up for them most recently. THIS WAS NOT ALWAYS FLATTERING. But it was real. I realized that there were many ways I was a fundamental good friend and many ways in which…I could…improve.
Instead of being theoretical about this, I then wrote a list of both what I wanted in a ride-or-die AND what I would be as a ride-or-die. Here’s what I came up with—and I now swear by this list.
6 Things To Look for in a Ride-Or-Die Friend (And How To Be One)
I want to be clear that not every single person in your life needs to meet all of these requirements.
But for My Lady Harem, my closest inner circle, the people you call crying from inside your shower (hi, LoPo), or the ones you ALWAYS make the effort to see when you’re in their hometown (hi, Ellen)…here’s my list:
1. Kindness over everything. Does this person fundamentally make you feel safe? Or do they bond with you over tearing other people down? If your friend is gleefully shredding everyone behind their backs, I promise you she is doing the same to you. There is no time for people who secretly want you to fail. None.
Conversely, am I kind to my friends? How much gossiping do I do? Do I check myself when being bitchy?
2. Confidence. It takes a truly confident person to celebrate someone else’s wins without making it about themselves. The best members of my Lady Harem don’t have chips on their shoulders. When something good happens to me, they are DELIGHTED. They don’t make me feel guilty for thriving. Look for those people.
Conversely, do I celebrate my friends’ wins? Or am I secretly jelly? Is it time to celebrate a friend right now? Probably.
3. Self-awareness. Can this person look at their own behavior honestly? When you tell them, gently, that something they did hurt you, do they get curious or do they get defensive?
A self-aware friend is someone you can actually navigate the hard stuff with. A friend unwilling to look in the mirror? This will grate on you over time and make intimacy difficult. I have to say in all honesty, I have a couple of people like this in my life, and where I have netted out to is…I love them, and I just know the friendship will never have deep honesty. Please don’t tell my therapist.
Conversely, am I self-aware? Do I handle feedback well? DO I REALLY?
4. Curiosity. Does this friend ask you questions? Are they genuinely interested in your life, while also letting you into theirs? I’ve had friends who turned every conversation back to themselves, and friends who listened but never shared anything real. Neither works! What you want is the person who is both interested AND interesting. Who makes you feel seen AND lets you see them.
Conversely, in conversations, I try to monitor, over time, how much oxygen my stories are taking up. And if it’s too much, I pull back. This is not because I think I am a “burden,” though I once did. It’s just that…there needs to be space for other people to tell their stories. EVEN IF I’m in a huge year of transition (which I am) when I notice that MAYBE I am teetering into self-indulgence, I can call a friend and say, “You know, I haven’t heard enough about your new job,” “Or, I know your daughter has been sick this year, what’s the latest?”
5. Your specific secret sauce. Every person has one thing they need most from a friend, and it is COMPLETELY okay to know what that is and go find it. For me, it used to be people who came from stable, loving families. I know that sounds counterintuitive given my own background, but I often confuse other people’s emotional family baggage for my own, so I need to be careful! But as I’ve grown into a steady adult (I mean, I can’t believe it’s true either), I look for friends who are DEEPLY engaged with life. Are they curious? Do they want to DIVE into growth? Do they want to solve the world’s big problems? Those are the folks I try to SURROUND myself with.
Conversely, am I living up to the standards I am setting?
6. When thinking about a person, and deciding if they are ride-or-die, do yourself a favor and ask one very simple question: when you leave this person, do you feel better or worse? Do you feel like a bigger, more alive version of yourself, or do you feel drained and vaguely inadequate?
Conversely, do people want to have repeat plans with me? Do I seem to bring energy to people or drag them down?
Testify
Have you actively gone out and tried to make ride-or-dies? Tell me one thing that makes them irreplaceable.
I don’t have anything to add to list, just noting that this post reminded me that I have a few long distance friends I need to check in with!
The part where they are deeply curious about life — what a great criterion! I think all my closest friends share that in common.