Sunday Night With John: Now, That's A Friend

I was sitting down for a nice dinner Friday night in downtown Iowa City, with my wife and mother-in-law, when we stumbled into a situation. As we ordered our food, a girl attempted to leave the bar. The only problem was that she was rather intoxicated. We live in a day and age with a plethora of options to not drive if we are drunk: taxis, public transportation, friends, and Uber. We have the ability to call a car to just come pick us up so there is no excuse for this type of behavior anymore. Just as I was ready to be disappointed in humanity again, a friend of this girl stopped her and told her she would not allow her to drive. 

The back and forth about driving ensued for the length of our dinner. It provided a great deal of entertainment, but the friend held firm. As the scene unfolded, I kept thinking about what makes a good friend--someone supportive, fun, and caring. But, maybe the most important trait we need in a friend is to be our conscience when we lose our head. Its the toughest part of the job, and most friends fail this test. A true friend has the ability to stand up to us and tell us when we are wrong. Not to tell us what to do, but to stand up to us when we are acting out of character. To find that type of person is truly special. They allow us to move past shallow friendships and into connections that make us better people. 

To achieve this, we must craft relationships where being brutally honest is not just welcomed but expected. We must have those awkward conversations where we get all emotional and feel completely vulnerable. We need to trust that, after we have said what we feel we need to say, the relationship will survive. When we left after dinner, the drunk girl and her friend still were standing outside. One friend was trying to convince the other that she was okay to drive, and, the other girl was honesty telling her there was no way she was going to let her drive drunk. I smiled on the walk back to the car. Witnessing true friendship is always a beautiful sight to see.  We should all be as lucky to have a friend like that girl.