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Friends, like partners, co-workers, and pretty much every other relationship, come and go. It’s just part of the natural rhythms of life. Things wax and wane, and sometimes that changes the foundations of a friendship, too.

If we’re lucky, though, we all have that friend or two who stands the test of time, and is maybe even at our side for the entirety of our lives. But what is it that makes those lifelong friendships stick?

A philosopher shared a three-question test to know if a person is a friend for life.

For many of us, it’s tempting to think of this in terms of loyalty. A lifelong friend is simply someone who has your back, no matter what, come what may. But Julian de Medeirosa professor of philosophy, recently dug into this topic on his popular TikTok channel, where he’s known as @julianphilosophy. And he pointed out that it has less to do with things like loyalty, and more to do with whether the friendship can withstand three specific challenges.

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Lifelong friendships can withstand three challenges: time, distance, and silence.

In his video, de Medeiros took his cues from celebrated Chilean author Isabel Allendewho is often quoted as having said that “true friendship withstands time, distance, and silence.” It’s those friendships that last through the ups and downs, withstand separation, and, perhaps most importantly, are the type where you can not speak for a year and pick up right back where you left off.

Allende’s choice of the word “true” is a bit sticky, however. It suggests that friendships that don’t survive these three challenges were never real friendships to begin with. Personally, I’m not so sure that’s true.

Juan Gomez | Pexels

I have moved around a ton in my adult life, from my native Michigan to Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, and several other places in between, including overseas. And over that time, I’ve made and lost tons of friends, not because anything went wrong and certainly not because of any breach of trust. But rather, just… well, because. They just sort of ran their course.

At the same time, the small handful of people who are my best, dearest, oldest friends all live on the other side of the world from me, and many of them haven’t lived anywhere near me for more than two decades. In most cases, they’re not people I grew up with either, so we don’t even have that ultra-deep shared history. So what’s the secret?

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It’s ultimately about whether you grow apart or grow together.

To illustrate this, de Medeiros referenced another author, Elizabeth Foley, who once said, “the most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” That word “true” is there again, but still… in my experience, anyway, this is exactly it.

As de Medeiros put it, “it’s about knowing… who will enjoy watching you change and go through different stages of your life,” rather than what it usually tends to do, which is shift the bedrock of the friendship so much that it no longer really has anything to stand on.

We’ve all probably experienced this. For me, tons of friends have passed in and out of my life now that we no longer have the slog of living in New York in common, or no longer have the trauma bond of trying to survive the entertainment industry I used to work in.

Roman Odintsov | PEXELS

But there are people I met through those experiences who are still here decades later. One of my two best friends has been like a brother to me for 25 years, even though we frankly have nothing in common anymore. He’s married and a dad, still lives in Los Angeles, and he and his husband live a pretty high-flying life, at least compared to me, who is the opposite of all of those things.

And yet when we do reconnect, it’s like no time has passed. We’re fascinated by the way each other has changed, and genuinely invested in what is making us tick all these years after we met as two 22-year-old doofuses waiting tables in West Hollywood. I’m lucky to have many such examples of these kinds of friendships, ones that don’t exactly seem like they’d work on paper and yet somehow still do.

The key, I suppose, has something to do with acceptance, both of yourself and the other person. When neither of you is looking for that validation, perhaps it makes it easier to adapt to the shifting sands. Or maybe it’s just pure luck.

Either way, in my experience, de Medeiros, Allende, and Foley are all correct: What makes the difference is staying curious about each other and embracing life’s changes rather than trying to stay the same. If you can do that alongside each other, that’s a bond unlikely to ever truly break.

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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.