It's more important to choose friends that can have fun with than to choose friends that will help you when you need them
Everyone needs friends for companionship. Humans live with groups. One's lack of friends is similar to a fish's lack of water. Without friends we can hardly survive. However, people will have different standards while they choose the friends. Some people make friends because they feel lonely and thus need companionship which will bring them joy. Some have friends that help them solve difficult life situations and always stay with them even during the hardest time. People establish friendship based on different motivations. As for me, I will prefer the student who can company with me and deal with the dilemma together.
Admittedly , we need the friend who can sharing something we both like, and it's also the first step for us to make friends. I can remember the first time I met my best friend, we sit together, and talking about the protagonist of a movie. So I always think that we can get along very well is because we can have fun together, and whatever it maybe ,say, reading,music and etc. Common hobbies can be an ice breaker and also help you to strengthen your friendship. And the further communication in the following years of life, one may find it a great joy to get along with the people who can always company with you. And whatever the fun may be , whether spiritual or material, without the possibility of having fun together, any so-called friendship will finally disappear like the temporary tides.
However, if the friendship just based on the simple fun is not sufficient, people will have the deeper requirement when they choose their truly friends. So whether an "intimate" friend can give a hand when one is in trouble has become a good solemn statement of whether it is a genuine friendship. My teacher told me that a true friend indeed is a friend in need, goes like the old saying: even though sometimes, friends lack the capabilities of doing a favor, but the willingness to help and the active attitudes can also be taken as a perfect sigh of a genuine friendship. In everyone's heart , the most agony thing is that your friend leave you when you get in trouble, if the friend who can't in the nick of time give you a hand out of dilemma, then you can't pay the true feeling and love to him, and it will never have the qualification which is called the truly friendship.
With all illustration that I demonstrated above, I believe that everyone will have a "friend rank" which deeply impressed in their hearts, people need the harbor when we get in trouble, so I think that the most important interpretation of "friend" is that can always company with you when you really need help.