'Friendship'....?

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I wasn't sure where to put this.
But, I am an adult (albiet a very naive one), who would appreciate comments or enlightment from people closer to my own age to gauge how naive I really am!

What do you consider to be important/essential when considering someone to be a 'friend'?

This line of questioning came up with my psychotherapist a while back; (before my diagnosis), and it's been playing on my mind a bit. Anyway, I was asked this question (can't even remember why!) and the first thing that came out of me was "honesty", because I value honesty above almost anything. He was visibly 'taken aback' by my revelation and I really couldn't understand why. This went on into a long discussion about what 'friendship' is and whether I could also be that 'honest' friend myself.

What I can't understand is, (apart from your own family), if someone cannot be completely honest with you (no 'mind-games' attached), (however critical their comments are), how can they be a 'true friend'?
Because ultimately, someone who cares for you is always going to be as honest as they can for you; because their honesty is there to help or protect you.
Clearly I'm being far too 'picky', or my own definition of a 'friend' is completely skewed!

Anyway, I'm not asking you to comment on my confusion! But, more of an insight into what you define to be 'friendship' or a 'friend'?

Yeah I generally thought honesty was a must in terms of "true friendship". A lot of times friends cant be completely honest with each other due trying to keep the peace within the friendship. Yeah if a friend needs to lie to you then thats not a true friendship, but then true friendships are rare and hard to come across. But dont take the truthfulness overboard, tactfulness is still needed to maintain good friendships.

A real friend for a man, is someone you can call at 3 in the morning and say:
"My car has broken down out of town. Come and pick me up"

I really think "availability" is the defining aspect of what I consider friendship. A friend for me is someone I can contact any time who would be willing to spend time with me and discuss things we're mutually interested in.

I don't think it's abnormal to see honesty as very important in friendships. Aspies tend to be more black-and-white about it, so they might reject a friend for lying to them, without first finding out whether the lie was really intended to gain an advantage over them or not.

I don't like friends lying to me at all, but I can see that there can be mitigating circumstances for some lies. I'd be uncomfortable if a small child asked me if Santa Claus really existed. If I knew that a friend's partner was having an affair, and the friend asked me what I thought of their partner, I'd want to tell them what was going on, but I'd also be mindful of the effects of the revelation, in terms of what might happen to their children.

I think Aspies tend to feel that accurate information is always a good thing for anybody who has good intentions. But people have to be emotionally ready for truth sometimes, or giving it to them can do more harm than good.

Pathological honesty is a very vulnerable state to be in. To demand the absolute, whole truth from somebody is to pre-suppose that you can be trusted with it. So when a lie is told, the one who was lied to needs to check whether they were really entitled to the kind of openness they expected.

I don't lie much, but I conceal a lot, because I don't entirely trust what people would do with the information.