Recently, though, I’ve come to be much more chary in my use of the word. Being a friend to someone is different from being a friend of someone. And since the word is commonly interpreted as describing a uniformly bi-directional relationship, that difference can be easily overlooked.

This was brought very abruptly to the forefront of my attention last year when someone with whom I was acquainted for decades assigned me his medical power of attourney.

He was first diagnosed with cancer in March 2016, at which point it was already stage IV. He passed away less than three months later. He was in and out of hospital and on various treatments during that time, and the prognosis was never very good. Since it was quite possible he’d end up at some point being unable to direct his own care (unable to speak, non compos mentis, comatose, etc.), his oncologist strongly recommended that he update his advance directive. And he asked me to be his proxy. (He also wanted me to be the executor of his estate in the event of his death, but that event occurred before he could make a will.)

I agreed after some thought, but the thinking continued after the documents were signed. I mean, that’s an exhibition of a crapload of trust — he was trusting me not only with his life, but with his death. That resulted in a lot of introspection and soul-searching; what had I been to him that he’d trust me like that? And why had I agreed?

I was being a friend of his when he considered me worthy of this trust, and I was a friend to him when I accepted. Put another way, he regarded me as his friend when he considered asking me, and I regarded him as my friend when I agreed.

“I am a friend to X” is distinctly different from “X and I are friends.”

Do you see the distinction? I didn’t, for most of my life, and as a consequence I have doubtless referred to uncountable people as ‘my friends’ who actively detested me without my knowledge.

Friendship is something you give and/or receive, but not necessarily both. You can extend friendship to someone, but there’s no required reciprocity clause.

As a consequence of all this introspection and consideration, I no longer refer to people as friends (unless they have already made a similar statement). I feel that by if I did, I would be unfairly placing a burden upon them without their consent or possibly even knowledge. So now I use the expressions, “someone I know,” or “an acquaintance of mine,” rather than the (to me) loaded “a friend of mine.”

There are a lot of people to whom I consider myself a friend; what they consider me for their part is up to them, and largely a mystery to me. When I say I am a friend to someone, I am defining my side of the relationship and my feelings and personally-accepted obligations toward them — and in no way defining any for them toward me, nor even any expectations of same on my part.

As for my acquaintance? He executed a DNR before his final crisis, so some of the burden was off my shoulders, but I still had to make a decision to concur with it and inform his medical team. Perhaps I wasn’t legally required to do so, but I felt morally compelled to ensure that his health-crisis/end-of-life wishes were fulfilled.

After all, we were friends.