You’s mah homie doe.

Now and again, the idea of a true friendship startlingly crosses our minds, and we often wonder whether or not this guy or girl is as close to us as we’d thought, hoped, wished, presumed, and believed. While anyone could look to a friendship’s particularly pleasant memories, I personally think it easier to find delight in the aftermath of damage.

Since the days when we’d be sincerely hysterical over a new toy until recently when we’d become too overjoyed over our new shoes or instrument or phone, one thing would always break us down: these things get damaged. I know when I was little, I was Hulk-level pissed beyond sense whenever my toys broke; and then there’s present time, when I’d be absolutely enraged to find my phone acting up at a bad time or my good ol’ Xbox 360 refusing to turn on. These things are material. They break, we buy new ones; they’re ruined, we toss them in a closet or leave them aside till they’re claimed by a coat of dust. This nature of damage is what I describe as unfortunate.

Now, how about that first paper cut? A subtle twinge we hadn’t noticed until it bled; the first time we fell off our bike or skateboard and scraped our knees so badly that we’d made mosaic paintings on them. I know my first memorable scar came about when I was six or seven, when I’d accidentally scraped my back deeply against the headboard of my parents’ bed. I remember not being able to lie down on my back for at least three days—eternity for a six-year-old. But soon enough, it healed, and the pain and bleeding altogether stopped; the only thing that hadn’t completely faded was the scar. Even nowadays, I’d look at it and remember how stupid I was for recklessly rolling around a bed. These things are flesh. We get hurt, we fall, we bleed, we break bones, we bruise, we swell. We treat ourselves with temporary ointments and band-aids, get ourselves a stiff cast. Thereafter, whether days or months later, we’re well and healed. This kind of damage is, appropriately, painful.

The beauty in this, the seeming relevance, and the reason I’ve laid this all out is to administer these to a common calamity we’re all familiar with: a broken friendship. Whether by argument and affliction or betrayal and deception—hell, even the mild lack of communication—there’s always a time when we decide whether or not this friendship was real or worth keeping. Well, it depends. When things were ruined or didn’t work, was it easy for us to leave this friend aside for the dust? Was it easy to replace them? Or maybe when we were stabbed in the back, whether by knife or brittle thumbtack, we actually found ourselves hurting—we felt a burdening discomfort, a strange sort of illness that latched on and wouldn’t let go.

If we label hurt as unfortunate, then maybe it was all material—this was just a friend whom we admired, whom we thought was cool; we chose them for their perks and benefits. Call this hurt painful, though, and we officially recognize this friend as a part of us—someone we treat with ointments called reason and band-aids called forgiveness until we’re all better. It feels like a wound or a deep cut, but just like a scar, hurt becomes resolved until it’s only a visible memory—we’re healed, we learn, we live with it. It’s no broken toy we toss aside.

But that’s the golden difference, I think, between a friend who’s exceptional and a friend who’s expendable.