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Quality
Ciro and I were talking about our respective relationships with Ed and Val, and it occurred to me that the quality that makes a best friend is that they assume you know what you're talking about and work forward from there instead of questioning your data.
Attentiveness
Another quality, possibly a corollary, is a willingness to listen without demanding context because they can fill that in from what you've said in the past! Following leaps from one subject to another, as they come.
That said, I do have a friend who occasionally speaks in such oblique and cryptic terms that I absolutely must pull her up short and demand context because otherwise I just won't know what we're discussing.
[That said, I am always glad to have my friends question my data and context because I am such an unreliable witness, even unto myself...]
Re: Attentiveness
But my best friend always assumes I've done the research unless I say otherwise - I'm granted automatic expert authority, which as you point out, also comes from a long history of knowing me and having reason to believe that I have studied a given thing. There is also an assumption that I will understand my best friend also knows what she's talking about. It's different from the relationship I have with other friends.
I think context is important, but also not needing to pull status - if, for instance, Val is telling me I should try boiling an egg a different way, it is to make my life easier, and not to prove that she has superior knowledge of egg boiling. She's also not likely to say anything unless I seem unhappy with the way I do it normally - it is not controlling.
Where it's really noticeable is matters of opinion, but where critical background matters - talking about a movie, or a book, politics, feminism, art theory. If I say I think something is misogynist, it comes after serious study of all the waves of feminism, including offshoots like the black lesbian feminists in Boston in the 70s, and I don't have to say that. Whereas with other people, I would not only have to say that, but would still have to face "but this is really just you feeling sad." It's nice to just be able to say something like "trickle-down economics doesn't work" and have it understood as based in math and not which news station I watched recently.
We don't have to prove anything anymore; we're just proud of each other. It's nice.
Re: Attentiveness
In an odd turnabout, C and I had a dear friend of his over to dinner, who is leaving town. It has been so long really since (outside my father) I have had to face someone who has diametrically different, and frankly unsubstantiated, views, that the dinner was incredibly difficult. I really, really tried my hardest to be a good host, but I'm afraid I wasn't able to always contain myself. (Topics included "why men don't have parenting instincts and [biological] mothers are meant to take care of children" and "why women shouldn't have power in church," brought up by the fact that I mentioned how proud I was of Carter for taking a stand against the Baptist church, on an oddly circular note.) And I wondered how they could be friends; despite the fact that I love him in my own way, I've also forcibly ejected him from the house before. We have a lot of trouble holding a conversation, much less understanding each other.
Re: Attentiveness
There was a quite long and useful response which was specific to the situation, but there was also a broader observation that part of the reason we have increasing trouble getting along with people of different beliefs is that our socializing is now very often based in talking - in phone calls and e-mails, or if you're in the same town having dinner. In that context, having different views is a really big deal, and you can't actually enjoy each other's company.
But there are ways to be companionable that don't involve talking, or at least not talking about real issues. You can silently and happily garden side by side. You can play cards together. You can bake. I might love going on hikes with somebody who points out interesting vegetation and tells stupid puns, may love working on their car with them, but may never want to talk to them on the phone. Something like this is probably the basis for C's friendship - it's a doing friendship, not a talking friendship.
I'd add that there's a reason for the etiquette rule about confining table talk to non-inflammatory topics (no politics, no child rearing, etc) exists for a reason, and I the one reason is so you can say "we don't talk about those things at table" when somebody's acting crazy without having to say "shut up you idiot." I'd also say you can often derail these conversations by instead asking questions about things like someone's childhood, favorite band, how their house renovations are going. Anything that forces them to think more flexibly and put their best selves forward - things that call on them to describe rather than proscribe.
Re: Attentiveness
(I was very impressed at how C handled it, I should note.)
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