Pop quiz: Define friendship.

How do you define friendship? I demand a lot from my friends, as much as I do my lovers, and I have been called a "hard woman" more than one. Not in the high maintenance sense, but in the The Bar is Set High sense. Maybe it's just a big challenge to be friends in my world!

Here's are the qualities I require in my friends:

1. Communicative: I have dozens of friends around the globe. They remain my friends because we communicate. It may not be as often as we'd truly like, but we make the effort to keep up with each other's lives as often as possible. And the effort to communicate is like every other aspect of a relationship -- TWO-WAY.
2. Honest: There is one big No-No in my world and that is lying. That is the single easiest way to get kicked to the friendship curb with me. Trust me enough to tell me the truth. I am an adult; I can handle it, and I will not punish you for telling me that truth. I WILL punish you for lying to me.
3. Respect: Respect is earned not given like a gift. Friends must offer freely their input and perspective. If I can't get clarity on a mindset either because an opinion is never offered and defended, or because it's so vapid and shallow that it's more fashion critique than insight, then there won't be any respect. This is also a requirement around behaviour -- there's only so much Sad Sack Syndrome I can conscience. Be mature. Be worth respecting. I'll give you enough rope to hang yourself, and if you haven't hung yourself by then, I will do it for you.
4. Support: I don't ask for help unless I really need it. I mean, really need it. I'm the type of pride-stuffed freak who'll drive herself to the emergency room after I've cut off a finger, so if I ask for help, the person I've trusted enough to ask had better be willing and/or able to provide.
5. Loyalty: Trust is a key component of loyalty. In fact, in my mind they are practically the same thing, except loyalty is trust in action. Loyalty is not only refusing to sleep with my GF/BF but also TELLING ME that some exchange of bodily fluids almost occurred. 
6. Proaction: Akin to my comment in (1) about a relationship being two-way ... I know I am better than most my friends about staying connected. I am an 8 in the Enneagram, which means I am usually taking charge of most situations anyway, whether I really want to or not. I expect friends to make an effort to do more than react to me Take some initiative.
7. Reliable: If you say you are going to do something, do it. Don't flake out. If you flake out, have a really good reason that isn't fabrication. (Because lying is bad -- see (2).)
8. Flexible: This can be read as "tolerant, open-minded, laid back, able to laugh." It is NOT rigid, traditional, uptight or prudish. If you are a pill, we cannot be friends.

I'm sure I'll add to this at some point. But these are the ones that are standing out in my head tonight.