Presumably you are so close that you would help your friend hide a dead hooker if asked.
Of course the premise is bullshit. On principle alone I don’t want to be that close of friends with the kind of person who is going to be bringing his dead hooker storage shit to my door because storing dead hookers ain’t my fucking business.
I’m not sure I’d want to be friends with the kind of friend who would store a dead hooker for me!
Live hookers now…
I agree with this sentiment and would add that I would not feel comfortable having a stranger look in on my animals. I ask my friends because A.) I do it for them too, and B.) They know my kitties very well. They know what is and is not normal behavior for my cats and one of my closest friends (and first choice for pet sitting) is a CVT (vet tech), who I absolutely trust with my kitties lives.
I don’t know if this arrangement is because my friends and I are so close to one another or if it’s because we’re all so very close to our pets that having a stranger in our homes and trusting them to notice a sick cat, dole out necessary medication, etc. is not a reasonable prospect.
As for other things, I gladly help my friends move because although we’re all self-sufficient and employed, shelling out a few extra hundred dollars during a move is money better spent elsewhere. Buy us some pizza and throw down for alcohol later in the night and it becomes a fun opportunity to make some memories and laugh a lot.
I’ve also been up playing cards at 2:30a with a friend who couldn’t sleep within the last year and for the record, I hit 30 in a couple of months.
It’s not about cat-sitting specifically, or about moving specifically. It’s about whether economic interdependence overall wanes. When everyone is living paycheck to paycheck, friendship webs serve as an emergency network. Later, you may provide some of those things out of sentiment, but it lacks the razor edge of poverty: When you are young and poor, it’s literally “I can’t go to grandma’s funeral if there isn’t someone to watch the cats” or “Landlord says we have to be out in 30 days and I can’t move furniture by myself”. If you don’t have friends to give you a ride to work when your car is broken, you lose your job. Now, I may call my friend down the street for a ride, but if worse came to worse, I could afford to call a cab.
My only friend is/was my parakeet who someone let get out last Friday and is Owl vomit by now. And second-generation coyote shit.
A friend is a person I like to talk to and think is worth the time getting to know.
I have friends at work. They know superficial and mundane details about my life and we enjoy chatting and encouraging one another. I have other friends too. We play games and laugh hysterically and celebrate life together. These are people I would welcome into my home and let crash on my couch. Honestly, the whole ‘‘drop everything at 2:30 in the morning’’ thing … I would be willing to do it for almost anyone. If someone, even a casual acquaintance or someone I didn’t even really like that much was going through some shit and going through it alone and needed someone to be there, I’d be there. It’s sort of just how I am. When it comes to my willingness to be there I don’t even really have to know you. That might sound suspiciously altruistic but keep in mind it’s very rare that I would be called upon to be profoundly there for someone I barely know. It’s not much of a sacrifice because it almost never happens. (Also in the interest of full disclosure, I will probably never call you if you don’t call me. You have to reach out for that to happen, otherwise I’m a total introvert.)
But I have other friends, friends I have known for years, who know my drama and I know theirs, and we talk about it. They know shit I did when I was 12, they know the way I order food at restaurants, they know by my tone of voice how I’m really doing. I call these people friends too, but I’m likely to describe them as my best friends because we share something deeper.
That might sound a bit confusing because I have one Best Friend, but I can name 3 other people who I would describe individually as ‘‘one of my best friends.’’ Those are very deep relationships. One is a college roommate/very close mutual friend of my husband’s, one is my Best Friend’s ex. The other is my Aunt and that is probably the deepest friendship of all, she’s done everything from change my diapers to take my wedding photographs for Og’s sake.
And then my husband, what is that, a close friend, a best friend? He knows me in ways nobody else does and can therefore be supportive of me in ways nobody else can. Whatever you call that, I don’t know.
ETA: ((((Gatopescado))))
I have but a few of these so-called “deep friendships” – the 3am friends, as it were – probably because I do not trust people very easily. These are people I know I can count on when crisis hits.
I tend to be one of those people who will drop everything and help a friend in need, at any time, no questions asked. It’s often been joked that my house becomes “Crisis Central” when all hell breaks loose: loss of a parent, a child, a fiance… you name it, we’ve seen it all in the last few years.
Friendships do change over the years - things that mattered most when we were teenagers or even in our early twenties and struggling to make it are no longer the same. It’s part of growing up, it’s part of… cognitive development and the shaping of identity, perhaps.
Word. The difference between the college (and early post-college) years and now…
Just for the record, you’re very good at this. 
I realized I was a grown up when I hired movers the last time I moved. I have a handful of close friends of the 2 am kind that are local, and a few more that are not so local, but like a few of you mentioned here, I’d never have thought to call my friends up and see if they could help me move.
I have some friendships like those in the OP - as with many other posters, a small circle of college friends whom I’d trust with more or less anything, and one or two people whom I’d trust with anything, no questions asked. However, we’re scattered all over the east coast now, and we’re lucky if we can get together once a year.
I also have friends in law school - they aren’t all that close, but I value them regardless. They’re comrades - we’ve all been thrown together into this big, crazy experience, and we all tend to view it in more or less the same way. Within that shared context, we’re quite close. These guys wouldn’t be my first call if, say, I’d just been dumped. But if I had some sort of problem in school, or whatever, they’d have my back in a heartbeat, and I’d have theirs.
It’s so funny to come home and see this post here tonight because Dewey D. and I were just talking about this tonight.
I have 3 best friends - all from different parts of my life: a high school best friend, a best friend I met through work, and a best friend I met online first. We have been there for each other in those extreme instances - but right now, we all live significant distances from each other. And they haven’t ever met each other.
Each of them knows me intimately from certain periods of my life.
Dewey D. probably knows the most cohesive amount of information about me - but then again, he took the time to read my 1000+ entries on livejournal - so there you go. And, well, he’s seen me naked.
But then again, so have my 3 best friends.
I have lots of other “friends” but I’ll be honest, I’ve moved a lot in my life - I think I’ve counted 23 places I’ve lived so far. And I expect I’ll live one or two more before I’m through. I’m the kind of friend that will always be glad to hear from you - and will do whatever I can for you - but I also don’t expect to be committed to keep in contact with you constantly - especially as I get older. My friendship is like the tide - I roll in and roll out - and occasionally our paths will cross and it will be great. But if you look for me to always be at one particular part of the shore all the time- you’ve got the wrong friend.
My best friend in the whole world, if she called me and said "help!’ I’d tell her to get her ass over here. If she murdered someone, I’d hide her anyway because she probably had reason, however suspicious it seems. I’d take her word over what the world has to say.
A friend in the military quoted someone who said something to the effect of: “I hope I’d have the courage to betray my country before a friend.”
A friend said that to me after finding out I was gay, and it stuck with me.
Part of what makes deep abiding friendships is spending time together, mundane time and important time. I can really dig someone at work and enjoy the time I spend with them, but they aren’t who I’m going to call at 3 a.m. Like olives I’ll answer if they call in the wee dark hours, but I wouldn’t reach out in a crisis to anyone but family or very old friends.
One of my best friends and I were just discussing this topic recently. She had serious abdominal surgery and I used some vacation time to travel nearly 400 miles to stay with her and help. Doing the shopping and cooking for the family was no biggie, but we had to get past the awkward giggle phase so I could help do the nursing stuff she needed done.
You just never think the cool kid you’re sitting next to in 8th grade history class will one day be your birthing coach or help you shower when you’re ill or bury a parent, but you’re damned glad they’re there when it happens.
Funnily enough, I had a conversation whether you’d help a “3am” friend cover up a murder with some friends of mine recently, and our different responses gave some interesting insight into our characters:
Friend 1: Would help you hide the body, give you an alibi, hide you from the police, help you flee the country, whatever you needed - but would never be able to feel the same way about you, and wouldn’t want to continue the friendship afterwards.
Friend 2: Would do all of that, wouldn’t judge you, and would still be your friend afterwards.
Me: Would tell you to turn yourself in, and do it for you if you refused. BUT would then stand bail, pay your legal fees, provide a character witness, be there in court every day for moral support, come and visit you in prison afterwards, and give you a place to stay and help you get back on your feet when you’re eventually released. You did something awful, and should be punished - that’s right and just. But you’re still my friend.
This is, of course, assuming we’re not talking about a psychopath of course.
To answer the OP, I have loads of acquaintances, work mates, drinking buddies, theatre pals, etc, on-line mates, etc, but 1 - maybe 2 - people in my life who fit that definition. And even then I’d hesitate to call them that, as in the past I’ve had friends as close as that, and it hasn’t stopped us drifting apart when our circumstances changed.
Friends are the guys you will lend your car to. Or the ones who you can call out of the blue and borrow a gun from.