Even as subsequent generations grapple with the increasingly digital nature of friendships (is a follower a friend?), our cultural narrative comes down hard on the belief that real friends are friends forever.

I am not saying long-term friendship isn't something to celebrate — I saw "Merrily" with a beloved friend I have known for 40 years and with whom my 17-year-old daughter and I were staying for the week. (That's friendship.)

I'm just saying that mythologizing it sets an exceptionally high bar. Not all friendships go the distance, which doesn't make them less valuable, and the ones that do often take all sorts of work.

The show's musical debate about the nature of "Old Friends" raised issues most of us have had to deal with, often without quite having the language. What does real friendship require? Time? Proximity? Ever-aligned hopes and dreams?

"I'll be there for you" is a lovely sentiment, but what does that actually look like? Supporting your friend in every decision or calling them out when you believe they are making a bad one?

Shared memories cast a powerful spell, but sometimes a divergent path can be seen as betrayal, especially for relationships formed when we are young. What is the ratio of expectation and forgiveness that keeps a friendship alive and vital? How does that change as we age and grow?

My daughter and I glanced at each other when "Merrily's" characters name-checked the schools they were either still attending or had just left — Julliard, Columbia, Barnard. We were in New York to tour some colleges, which meant, among many other things, that my daughter was contemplating a time when she would leave not only her family but the very close friend group she has had since elementary school. Indeed, the first comment she made about whichever campus we visited was whether or not the students seemed friendly. (I did try to point out that friendliness can be expressed … differently in New York than it is in L.A.)

Soon she will be faced with the pressure that distance, and maturation, can put on youthful friendships, while exploring new ones with all the wonder and pitfalls that inevitably involves.

I hope that she will continue to surround herself with the kind of people who help you launch into the world and stay with you for the entire ride. The kind of friend who, after 40 years, will put you and your child up for a week and accompany you to a Broadway musical that she has already seen because she wants to see it with you.

But, as I have told her and all my kids, "Friends" is a television show — most people don't hang out exclusively with the same small group for 10 years, just as most young adults can't afford big apartments with exposed brick walls. And that's OK.

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