Great Thinkers: How to Be a Good Friend

Introduction

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re a good friend—or wished someone had been a better friend to you—you’re not alone. Maintaining friendships isn’t always easy, especially in adulthood. But research shows that strong friendships are one of the most important predictors of long-term health and happiness, which makes learning how to be a good friend well worth the effort.

Yet few of us are taught how to be a good friend. Instead, we model what we saw growing up, mimic pop culture, or make it up as we go along, relying on trial and error. But these strategies often fall short: What we saw growing up may have been limited or unhealthy. Pop culture tends to glamorize friendship without showing us the hard parts. And trial and error, while inevitable, can lead to hurt feelings or lost connections.

That’s why it’s worth turning to deeper, more enduring sources of wisdom. Ahead, we’ll explore insights from six Great Thinkers you can use to become a better friend.

Aristotle: Be Virtuous

Let’s start with one of the earliest and best-known views on friendship, from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that friendship is essential to living a good life. He describes three kinds of friendship: those based on pleasure, those based on utility, and those based on virtue.

Friendships based on pleasure (like workout partners or drinking buddies) or utility (like professional contacts) can be enjoyable, but they’re often superficial and short-lived. The highest form of friendship, Aristotle says, is one based on virtue. These friendships form when two people admire each other’s character and care deeply about one another’s well-being, not just in the moment but in the long run.

According to Aristotle, virtuous friends help each other grow morally and intellectually. They hold each other to high standards, delight in each other’s progress, and act as moral mirrors. In this way, friendship becomes a practice of mutual improvement. In practice, this might look like:

• Engaging in meaningful conversations: Don’t just discuss work or make small talk. Instead, explore deeper topics like your values, personal goals, or challenges you’re facing. This helps you each clarify your values and act on them.
• Offering constructive feedback: If you notice your friend falling short of their values, offer feedback with kindness. For instance, if they tend to be overly pessimistic, you might gently point this out and offer an alternative way of seeing things.
• Encouraging virtuous behavior: When your friend faces a tough choice, support them in making a decision aligned with their values. This could mean reminding them of their values or helping them figure out which steps to take next.

Emerson: Be Honest and Affectionate

If any historic friendship exemplifies Aristotle’s view of virtuous friendships, it’s the one between Transcendentalist philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau (Walden). Emerson and Thoreau were lifelong friends whose bond was grounded in a shared commitment to self-improvement and the pursuit of truth. They challenged each other’s ideas, supported each other’s work, and provided a moral mirror to one another, just as Aristotle envisioned.

What made the bond between these two philosophers so enduring? In an essay titled Friendship, Emerson offers a hint, asserting that good friendships require honesty and affection.

Honesty, Emerson insists, is the foundation. In most social situations, he says, we wear a kind of mask, hiding our real thoughts behind small talk or compliments. But with a true friend, we can drop all of that. We can “think aloud” in their presence, speak directly from the heart, and be met with the same openness in return. It’s through this kind of honesty that we come to truly know and understand one another—which builds the trust and intimacy that make friendship so powerful.

If honesty is the foundation of friendship, affection is the warmth that sustains it. According to Emerson, genuine friendships thrive on little acts of tenderness: simply enjoying your friend’s company and offering comfort when needed. He explains that such actions make friendships feel alive and human—they give us the sense that we’re not only seen but also appreciated for who we are.

brown and Wilde: Be There in Good Times—and Bad

We’ve discussed how friends should treat each other—by encouraging each other to be virtuous, speaking honestly, and acting affectionately. But what should friends do together?

Activist adrienne maree brown believes that friendship should be an opportunity for people to cultivate pleasure together. In Pleasure Activism, she explains that pleasure isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessary part of liberation and well-being. When friends make space for joy, play, and connection, they’re not just having fun; they’re actively resisting a culture that tries to control people by restricting their pleasure. For brown, shared pleasure can be a source of healing and empowerment. Dancing in the kitchen, binge-watching a favorite show, or co-creating something beautiful can help friends feel more alive, more themselves, and more connected to each other.

But life isn’t always pleasurable, and friends matter just as much—if not more—during times of hardship. Playwright Oscar Wilde sheds some light on this in De Profundis, a meditation on suffering he wrote while imprisoned for his sexuality. Wilde suggests that the truest test of friendship isn’t whether someone shows up to celebrate with you, but whether they insist on sharing your sorrow. If a friend refused to let him grieve alongside them, Wilde says, he would feel deeply humiliated and shut out of one of life’s most sacred bonds.

Putting brown’s and Wilde’s advice together, you might conclude that being a good friend means simply being there for your friends as they experience life’s ups and downs. In The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin provides two concrete strategies you can use to be there for your friends consistently:

1. Stay in touch: Show your friends you’re present by checking in—for example, by texting a friend you haven’t seen in a while, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about you! How have you been?” This lets your friends know you care, even when nothing big is happening.
2. Follow through with plans: It’s easy to flake on plans with friends, but it’s better to show up when you say you will. This shows your friends that they matter to you and that you prioritize being present for them in everyday life.

Waldinger and Schulz: Prioritize Your Friendships

In addition to showing up for your friends, it's crucial to actively prioritize these relationships. In The Good Life, researchers Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz explain that high-quality friendships have been proven to enhance life, but we often let them fall by the wayside. One reason for this is that our culture teaches us to prioritize money over relationships. We mistakenly believe that the more money we have, the happier we’ll be—so we might be tempted to skip a friend’s birthday party, for example, to work a few extra hours.

Further, Waldington and Schulz point out that the relationships we do prioritize don’t tend to be friendships. Most of us put our partners, families, and sometimes even our coworkers first, which leaves us with little time to nurture our friendships. Feminist theorist bell hooks makes a similar point in All About Love, arguing that we’re taught to weigh romantic relationships more heavily than friendships and community. hooks says this leaves us feeling disconnected from a vital source of support and love—which, Waldington and Schulz note, negatively impacts our physical and mental health.

Given its benefits, Waldington and Schulz recommend making friendship a priority. An obvious way to do this is by spending more time with your friends, but they offer two other strategies for deliberately nurturing these bonds:

First, jazz up your friendships. It’s common for friends to fall into a rut, and feelings of boredom can drive you away from one another. If you realize that you and your friends are stuck in a pattern, introduce some novelty—try a new activity together or switch up your usual hangout spot. Fresh experiences like these can reinvigorate your friendship by creating new shared memories and deepening your connection.

Second, make sure you’re giving as much as you get. Friendships can easily become lopsided; one friend might always be providing support while the other is always on the receiving end. This imbalance can quietly erode even long-standing friendships, so try to maintain a fairer dynamic.

Great Thinkers’ Advice for Being a Good Friend

• Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics): To build lasting friendships, focus on virtue. True friends don’t just share fun times or help each other out—they encourage each other to grow into the highest versions of themselves.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (Friendship): To deepen your friendships, lead with vulnerability. Be honest about who you are, express your affection freely, and accept your friends with warmth and openness.
• adrienne maree brown (Pleasure Activism) and Oscar Wilde (De Profundis): To be a good friend, show up consistently. Celebrate the highs—through laughter, creativity, and shared pleasure—and honor the lows by offering your presence in moments of grief.
• Waldinger and Schulz (The Good Life): To make friendship thrive, treat it like a priority. Don’t just wait for friendship to happen—nurture it by investing time in your connections, mixing things up, and making sure support flows both ways.

What Do You Think?

Do you think you’re a good friend—why or why not? What role does friendship play in your life; do you think you should make it more of a priority? What could you do to become a better friend?