What makes a good friend?

I say that I have really good friends but I wasn't quite sure how to define what exactly is a good friend.  So this blog will first focus on what a good friend is not and then move on to what it is. 
      A good friend is not someone that calls you every day.  Sure a good friend can call you every day, but that act in and of itself does not make them a good friend.  My closest friends are people I don't talk to too often but when we do talk we pick up right where we left off even if it has been years since we spoke.  Time does not destroy the connection of a good friend.  You should at all times be able to pick up the phone and call them for help regardless of how long its been since you spoke.  This just happened to me as a friend who I haven't spoken to in almost two years just contacted me for help.  I readily agreed even though the conversation near two years ago didn't go so well.
       A good friend is not someone that demands change from you.  This is such an easy point yet it is the most often misconstrued.  This is the number one reason why friendships dissolve.  If you find yourself having to sacrifice your morals because this person either exploits them or doesn't accept them, you shouldn't be friends with them.  I have a rule that I don't let my friends drink alone.  Someone who I thought was my friend at the time, then called me every day to drink with him.  Clearly he was an alcoholic.  I found myself revising this rule to never drinking during the day, so he just called me at night.  He continually exploited these rules and used them against me, if someone does that, you should break contact with them..and I did eventually.  Despite what people think, people cannot and do not change.  You can convince the world you're someone else but you will never convince yourself.  Eventually your true self will break out and you would have wasted your time with anyone that wanted you to change.  People who have broken off friendships with me say things like "You never plan" "You're just too argumentative" "I can't be friends with someone who's stubborn"  If these are all traits of someone you can't be friends with, you were wasting your time being friends with me because those are traits I possess. 
       If you're someone that continually questions, you need friends who are patient to clearly explain things to you without getting frustrated.  Personally, I'm not someone that likes people getting too close.  When I feel a friend getting too close, I unleash the darkest and most horrible parts of my personality, the argumentative, brutally honest, aggressertive in your face full on assault.  My closest friends are all people that were unimpressed by it, to them, they saw no difference between that and how I normally act it was just an exaggeration.  The point is, you should never hide who you are from a close friend.  In a way, it's like picking a spouse, they need to see every crumb of your being and not be scared off.  One of my closest friends has a similar personality to mine, the only difference is, he shows you the horrible parts of his personality when he first meets you to see if you get scared off so he doesn't waste his time.  I argue that this is a better way, but not one I utilize.  I would do almost anything for my close friends, and I can say the same about them.
     A good friend is not someone that is not there in bad times.  If a friend is not willing to help you in your most vulnerable state, they are not friends.  It's easy to be friends with someone when times are good, but times never stay good, and when shit hits the fan, the bad friends leave.  Remember this in case times get good again.  Oddly, I have a friend who is the exact opposite of this.  There are two times in my life where I would believe I hit rock bottom.  Both times, she showed up, lifted me up and put me on track to getting things right with my life and then went away again.  When times are not too good, good, great or anywhere not rock bottom, she wants nothing to do with me.  She is what made me think about this.  But if a bad friend is someone that isn't there when you hit rock bottom but only in good times, then the natural opposite of that is someone who's there during rock bottom but not in good times, this logically makes it the opposite of bad, which we call good.  The other point is, if someone can convince you're friend to not be friends with you, they were never good friends.  Even if that person lied, your good friend should be able to confront you on it and realize the person was lying because they know you and what you would or would not do.