While there are definitely moments in whichhaving a friend who is doing really, really well for their age is incrediblydepressing, it’s an overall net positive to have them in your life. Yes, youmay occasionally have to suffer scrolling through their Facebook page and beingpersonally offended at every announcement of an absurd personal achievement,but it does mean that you get motivated. If the most upwardly mobile thing yourgroup of friends is engaging in consists of going to the local head shop to geta replacement bong for the one that was recently broken during a house party,chances are that you’re not feeling the pressure to do ~big things~ yourself.The more complacent people you’re surrounded by, the more complacent you’lltend to be by default. Not everyone in your social group needs to be gettingwritten up in the Times, but it would help if one of them had health insurance.

2. The Friend Who Disagrees With You

Perhaps in a perfect world, we would all beliving in an echo-chamber of our own half-baked ideals, wherein everyone was acopy of a copy of our original opinion. Everyone would hate Aaron Sorkin,everyone would love Community, and everyone would think Pho was overrated. Butthe direct result of being constantly affirmed and encouraged in your ideaswould likely be you becoming a smug asshole, and also possibly losing all gripon reality. If you don’t have at least one or two people who don’t think yourshit is cute 100 percent of the time in your click, you may very well end uplike all of those tragic celebrities who have nothing but yes-men around themand therefore think things like Scientology and meth are totally acceptable.

3. The Crazy Friend

I’m not saying you need to end up inprison, but maybe a brush with a jail cell for a night or two every so oftenwould do you some good. There are only so many sweater sets you can wear andchamomile tea you can drink at 8:30 PM every night before you need to erase atleast a little bit of your progress. You need that person who encourages you tomake all the decisions you considered yourself too “old” or too “boring” for,even if it means admitting you might actually be young for a minute. (I know!You have a job and khakis and everything — and yet you’re still 25!) For allthe time you spend talking about how much pressure you have on you and how manyloans you haven’t paid back and how much you have to sleep in order to be afunctioning human at work, you desperately need someone who occasionally runsthrough your life with a chainsaw, naked, screaming “WHAT TIME DOES THE ORGYSTART BECAUSE I’M ALREADY TRIPPING MY FACE OFF.”

4. The Friend Who Is Basically Family

There are times when we need someone who isas close as family — who is truly there through thick and thin, and doesn’tjust pay lip service to caring about you — and even actual family won’t do.Even if you have a Disney Channel Movie-close family unit, there will always bethings you can’t quite talk to them about. What are you going to do, sit yourmother down and be like “My boyfriend won’t go down on me, but expectsround-the-clock blowjobs like I’m some kind of vending machine with breasts.What do I do?” No. No one should subject their mother to that. You’re going toneed someone else to go to who, through their unconditional love andjudgment-free talks, can act as a therapist when you can’t afford to actuallygo to one. (And, it should go without saying, for whom you will always do thesame.) You need someone you can trust, and that won’t happen overnight.

5. The ‘Nice’ Friend

While it’s true that the word “nice” hasalmost become a pejorative when describing friends, or at least the catch-allfor people who have no noticeable redeeming qualities, there are people who areactually nice, and we should know some of them. They don’t need to be your bestfriend, but being around someone who is genuinely kind and uncritical ofothers, who sees the best in things, and tries to be positive at all times isguaranteed to rub off on you — or at least make you reconsider your own cold,withered heart. And though you may not always have flowing topics ofconversation and common ground (especially considering how much of your leisuretime activities consist of being bitchy about things), that is no reason torule someone out when their presence in your life would be like a little ray ofsunshine who loves Nicholas Sparks novels.

6. The Friend Who Throws Their Money Around

Let’s not make this more complicated thanit is. It doesn’t matter where their money comes from, it doesn’t matter whatthey plan on doing in the future, and it doesn’t matter if you two are all thatclose. If you have the opportunity to be friends with someone who is constantlypicking up the tab because money is not a problem and they get some sort ofcontact high off of acting like a bro-y version of the Monopoly Man, you seizeit. You ride that free vodka train for as long as it will take you, and repaytheir kindness in financially realistic ways, by a) being a good friend to themand b) making them macaroni art or poetry or whatever else we paupers can comeup with. It’s the thought that counts.