The people you spend time with are a good indicator of where you are and where you’re headed in life.

In fact, I think each one of us is the average of the five friends we spend the most time with. So if you have a friend who’s motivated to accomplish great things, and three friends who like to party and have fun all the time, and one friend who’s in deep financial problems, then you probably have all of these ingredients in your life.

Am I right?

You spend time with each one of these people because you share something with them. If not, then you probably at least share some of their views…and that can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the five friends you have in your life.

Paying conscious attention to the people you spend time with is perhaps something you should look into a little more than you already do. The relationships you invest in can have a detrimental effect on your growth trajectory, or they can inspire you to flourish into a better, stronger, and a happier human being.

Let’s look at three dominant forms of friendships and evaluate which is best.

1. Old Friends

Old friends are great.

These are the people we grew up with and they know about us more than anyone else. We also tend to feel a sense of comfort when we spend time with them.

However, some old friends are too old for you to be spending time with. And by old, I mean they haven’t developed themselves to the same extent that you have. They’re still after the same old things they were after year and years ago. But for some reason you find a way (or they find a way) to spend time with you and be friends.

But are your old friends still living at home? Are they still living their lives as though they’re still in college? In what areas of personal growth have they improved? What have they accomplished?

I ask these questions because I want you to think about how much you’ve changed. Paying attention to these details can save you time and energy and probably some headache and heartache. And that’s because “old” friends expect that you haven’t changed either. They want to hang out with the “old” you.

2. Friendship Test

I find that the best way to know if your friendship is worth the investment is to ask yourself the following:

Does this friendship inspire me?

I really like this way of evaluating friendships because it bypasses all the emotional, and perhaps biased, connections we have to certain friends. We might be biased in favor of remaining good friends with them….well, because we’ve known them for a long time. But in and of itself, that’s not enough of a reason for you to remain friends.

In fact, if you don’t admire your friend, then you are probably not too pleased with that friendship. And if that’s the case, then you might be in one or two of the following deficient friendships.

Let’s look at two deficient modes of friendships.

3. Friends of Utility

Some friendships are only instrumentally useful.

They’re usually of the kind where “if I scratch your back, then I would expect you to scratch mine.”

In these kinds of friendships, you and your friend only value the friendships to the extent you both derive goods and benefits from each other. You don’t value the friendship for its own sake. There is no sense of mutual caring between the two of you and you’re neither inspired by your friend nor do you admire him or her.

And the problem with these kinds of friendships is that they’re easily replaceable. So if your friend could receive the goods and benefits from another source, then your friend is likely to let go of the friendship. Your friend is only concerned with you to the extent you deliver the benefits. And that’s not a good place to be at.

While that’s a not pleasant to be in and you probably wish your friend can be more concerned about you, the fact of the matter is that the concern for the friendship can’t arise on its own. You can’t simply decide to care for your “friend” out of thin air. And you can’t expect that friend to do that.

Concern has to come from something else. And that thing is the value that you see in your friend in terms of their drive, ambition, motivation, goodness and virtue, and not the value you derive from the benefits you receive from them or the ones they receive from you.

4. Friendships of Pleasure

Another form of deficient friendship that is all too common is that of pleasure.

These are the people you spend time with in the pursuit of a good feeling. And what brings you together is the substance that forges that connection.

This friendship is also (and only) instrumentally useful to the extent that you get the pleasure you crave from it. And you wouldn’t value that friend without the presence of this substance in the friendship. So you’re there only because of that substance.

However, what differentiates this kind of friendship from utility friendship is the substance of pleasure. And depending on what that substance is, it can hook you into a lifestyle you would rather not have and spend time with people you wouldn’t normally spend time with.

Pleasure and utility friendships are relationships of convenience and they will normally lead to disappointment and possibly regret.

5. Genuine Friendships

The best kind of friendship, which I have implicitly distinguished from the rest, is the friendship that makes you feel more alive.

And such friendships are based on sharing activities that contribute to mutual growth. That’s where you have an opportunity to learn (and teach) as well as share with the other person the experience of this joint endeavor. Your joint endeavor is any life-enhancing activity. And it could be going to a musical together, or playing a sport together, or having philosophical conversation together, and so on and so forth. Such activities fulfill you.

But I like to emphasize here that I am not looking at genuine friends merely as activity partners. Genuine friends are those we feel happy for their success, but we also share the disappointment of their failure. And regardless of the challenges your friends go through, you never perceive the friendship as a burden. You don’t think about “trading up” your friend and find someone else to replace him or her. You have a special relationship to your friend in the same way your friend has a special relationship to you.

These are genuine friendships and they’re worth finding and cultivating.