1. I shouldn’t be able to fuck up around you. After a certain period of time, I shouldn’t be able to do any one thing that causes you to hate me or revoke our friendship forever (unless that thing is like, killing your parents or raping your girlfriend or something). I shouldn’t be able to say or do something that changes your opinion of me from “my friend” to “a piece of shit” in a matter of seconds. You can impress me if you show me that that isn’t going to happen; that you accept me pretty much completely, that you can totally identify with my problems, that you’re willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, that you like me and that it’s like we’re on a team.

2. You say things that surprise me or intrigue me. You can impress me if it’s obvious to me that you’re interesting in a way that I can’t quite describe; if it’s obvious to me that you understand the world in an exciting way that I’m not fully able to comprehend. Therefore, I shouldn’t really be able to predict a good amount of your behavior, and so spending time together will be fun and interesting for me. I will value our friendship.

3. You’re genuine to such an extent that you rarely brush off or deflect conversations with clichés, but instead respond to what I say thoughtfully, truthfully, and without apparent discomfort (or, if you feel uncomfortable, tell me you feel uncomfortable; I am okay with that). In other words, when I ask you about your dad, for example, I’m probably trying to get a clear picture of who your dad is (because I’m interested in knowing more about you, because I like you, and because I like to know more about people who I like – this is honestly a pleasurable thing for me); I don’t want you to brush me off with “Oh, he’s fine.” As told, if you simply don’t want to talk about him, tell me you don’t – it’s better than passively denying my attempts to get information out of you. Of course, I wouldn’t want you to act this way if you didn’t want to act this way. My point is that you can impress me if it’s your nature or desire to communicate in this way; if you desire this out of yourself as well as me.

4. You won’t be offended when we have disagreements. You will understand that disagreements about opinions or facts are not intrinsically personal things. Disagreements are nothing more than two people interpreting a situation discordantly; this does not have to piss you off. You’re okay with me hating your favorite band, just as you’re okay with me saying a movie you liked a lot is stupid. To impress, me you should see disagreements as neutral or even exciting events in which you may learn something from the discussion consequent to the disagreement.

5. You’re able to see things from a different-yet-still logical perspective than me in such a way that we can often advise each other by offering our unique perspectives. Your perspective in essence needs to be sometimes-wider and sometimes-wiser than mine. You should assess situations with the same tools I assess situations with, but you should sometimes come to different conclusions. In turn I will be able to follow your logic exactly when you offer a new way of looking at my current problem, and so it will be refreshing and relieving for me to understand, identify with, and believe in what you’re telling me.