The one friend we all need

We all need love. The difference between you and Mark Zuckerburg is that you get all weepy and emo about it while Zuck writes 10,000 lines of code and launches Facebook.

The Socials: No idea has been more effective in changing the landscape of love, friendship, and marketing. Not to mention, hatred, stupidity, and materialism. The globalization of human consciousness is one of the most profitable businesses of the 21st century.

Outside the virtual world of the socials is the pretty mundane, pretty ordinary real world filled with sweaty, awkward people. According to a popular theory about friendship in the real world, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

Growing up, your friendships assemble into constellations only you can fathom. The time you spend inside this dreamy astronomical haven drastically reduces when adulthood and ambition take over.

Before you know, you are spending your time with a bunch of really shitty people – and you have no idea how you are down to this. Of course, by the aforementioned law of averages, you tend to become pretty shitty yourself.

This happens because good friendships are hard to come by in adulthood. The socials succeeded in part because they filled this void. We don’t feel the urge to make new friends anymore given how much of our needs the socials will be able to provide for.

With that, we are missing out on one of the most important needs in adulthood. The need to hear the truth.

Instead of looking for five badass friends to spend the most time with, look for one person that will tell you the truth. Not out of condescension, but out of hope; Not out of contempt, but out of liberty; Not out of envy, but out of encouragement; Not inside the hallowed walls of the virtual world, but inside whatever is left of a real conversation. That’s what makes for good friendship in adulthood.

All the banal crap you hear about friendship is the nincompoop that only fuels the dry dung of virtual network you take warmth in.

A real friend is not someone that accepts you the way you are. Not someone who likes the same things you do. Not someone who is the only person that understands you and therefore cleans up your vomit because, you know, you got piss drunk, again and what are friends for after all!

A friend in need is not a friend indeed. It just means you have a needy friend. Sometimes you are just better off asking him/her to get a grip rather than taking him/her out for a drink and asking him/her to, you know, *chill*.

The deepest friendships and the most real friends that are formed in adulthood are a result of being unafraid to call out bullshit on one another in the most loving way possible. In adulthood, you are lucky if you find at least one person who is able to tell you your truths regularly. It may be painful. And that’s because it’s real.

At a time when friendship and love are turning into statistics and business metrics, the truth is the only salvation to retain any semblance of friendship.

You are the average of the truths you are willing to hear. I hope you find one person to tell you some of it.

In the real world, friendship is something you enter into freely, without the imperatives of expectation, unconditional love or some batshit ability to see deep inside each other’s soul. You owe each other nothing. Only truth.

Love, that magic potion we all need, is an outcome of that.