Has Growing Older Changed My Understanding of Friendship?

Has your idea of what makes a good friend changed as you’ve gotten older?

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When I was younger, I thought friendship was about spending time together, sharing experiences, enjoying conversations and having people around me. A good friend was someone who made life more enjoyable, joined me in celebrations and shared my interests.

That view was not wrong. Shared time is how most friendships begin. But it was incomplete, because it measured friendship by what we enjoyed together. The passing years have taught me to measure it by something harder: what it can survive.

We are usually told that adversity is the real test. A friend in need is a friend indeed. The Roman poet Ennius said as much more than two thousand years ago, in a line preserved by Cicero: a sure friend is discerned in an unsure time.¹ I do not doubt it. But growing older has shown me that hardship is not the only test of friendship, and perhaps not even the hardest.

1. Success is a harder test than sorrow.

Most decent people will stand by a friend in trouble, because sorrow invites sympathy. Success invites comparison instead. Many of us have received congratulations that arrived a day late and a word short. Oscar Wilde observed that anybody can sympathise with a friend’s sufferings, but it takes a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success.²

The test runs both ways. One of India’s best-loved stories of friendship concerns the friend who prospered. When Kuchela, poor and threadbare, arrives at the palace of his boyhood friend Krishna carrying only a small bundle of flattened rice, the king rises to embrace him and relishes the humble gift as though it were a feast.³

Today I value a friend who celebrates my achievements without jealousy. I also want to be a friend whom good fortune never makes distant.

2. Silence is not the same as distance.

Once, I assumed that a friendship that went quiet was dying. Now I know that people carry families, responsibilities and private struggles of their own. Some friendships fall silent for months, and then a call comes that picks up as though the last one ended yesterday. A sincere conversation after a long silence can mean more than countless casual exchanges.

The Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran wrote that what we love most in a friend may be clearer in absence, as a mountain is clearer to the climber from the plain.⁴ I have learned not to judge friendship by how often someone calls, but by the sincerity behind the call.

3. Honest disagreement is a form of loyalty.

A friend who agrees with everything I say is pleasant company and little help. Often the most valuable words a friend can offer are the three nobody else will risk: “Are you sure?” I now value someone who tells me the truth, even when it is uncomfortable, and who can differ from me without letting the difference damage the relationship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson put it bluntly: “Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.”⁵ A good friend also leaves room for me to grow, encouraging my aspirations rather than controlling them.

4. Granted, few friendships pass every test.

It may be objected that these standards are too high. Perhaps they are, and I have made peace with that. Not everyone who walks beside us is meant to remain. Some friendships belong to a particular season, and their ending need not be a betrayal. At this stage of life, I no longer feel the need to impress people or keep friendships for social recognition. I would rather have a few relationships in which I can be myself, speak honestly and be met with respect.

5. Every test is one I must also pass.

This is the part I missed for years. Do I rejoice when a friend overtakes me? Do I let a friendship rest in silence without keeping score of who called last? Can I hear disagreement without becoming distant?

Friendship is not simply about what we receive; it is equally about what we contribute. Perhaps the real change in my understanding is this: I began by asking what makes a good friend, and I have ended by asking whether I am one. Becoming a better friend, I believe, is an important part of becoming a better human being.

When I was younger, I looked for friends who made my life enjoyable. As I grew older, I began to value friends who made my life meaningful.

A Thought to Reflect On

A true friend does not feel smaller when you rise, does not disappear when you struggle and does not demand that you become someone else to earn their acceptance.

Growing older does not make us need friendship less; it teaches us to recognise genuine friendship more clearly.

Which of these tests has your closest friendship passed, and which have you had to pass for someone else?

Strive to elevate in life.

Notes for Readers

1. Cicero, On Friendship (De Amicitia), section 64, quoting the Roman poet Quintus Ennius (239–169 BCE): Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur. In the same passage Cicero asks where one might find a person who places a friend’s advancement above his own.

2. Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891).

3. The story is told in the tenth book of the Bhagavata Purana (chapters 80 and 81), a Sanskrit devotional text, where the friend is simply a poor, poorly dressed Brahmin. Later tradition names him Sudama in North India; in the South he is known as Kuchela, from the Sanskrit for “the poorly clad”.

4. Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (1923), “On Friendship”.

5. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”, Essays: First Series (1841).

John Britto Kurusumuthu

Rise & Inspire · riseandinspire.co.in

In response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt, 9 November 2026: Has your idea of what makes a good friend changed as you’ve gotten older?

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