@Grisson: hehe
As far as traits go, I think it’s really just a matter of compatibility. It’s a known fact that some people just don’t get along. I know we have to work and deal with people who we don’t get along with all the time, but I consider “friends” and “acquaintances” to be two totally different things…
In order to consider them a true friend…well, the truest of friends stick around, or if they can’t at least keep in periodic contact with you, I think. I guess that would be my measure of a “true friend.” And true friends, I think, are willing to do this as long as they live. (But I must admit, this is very hard to do! And my truest of friends maybe not be especially true. I’m not always so true.)
I can’t say I have any consious “criteria” for people becoming my friend. We either have a lasting connection or we don’t. It’s not really something you can control. The “litmus test” would be to just hang out with them for a bit and see if you sense that conection. If not, it’s probably best to leave the situation be.
And I do believe that someone you’ve never met can become your best, or one of your best, friends. I met someone through an online role-playing sight a few years ago and we still write to each other every now and then about things that are important to us and about what’s going on in our lives. It may be strange, but I find it almost easier to be friends with someone you’ve never met than with someone you have and then later must only communicate with via (e)mail and such. Once you have that phyisical tangibility with a person and start to lose it…I think that hurts more than anything and is very hard to deal with.
<_< So yeah. That’s my take.
And hierarchies suck. Seriously. If anyone feels they have to sit around and rank their real “friends” on some list they scrounged up, then maybe they aren’t being friends with those persons for the right reasons. Everyone is valuable in their own way, positive or negative, and no one is better than anyone else, not in their own right. Maybe people do that stuff because it makes them feel better, but I wouldn’t know; I’ve never made a hierarchy list.