Ever thought about what makes friendship fundamentally different from every other relationship in our lives?

It has one unique, non-negotiable requirement: it must be acknowledged by both parties, or it simply doesn't exist. Think about it. You can admire someone from afar who has no idea you exist. You can be related to a great-aunt you've never met. You can even employ someone without knowing them personally. In all these cases, the relationship (of admiration, of family, of business) is still real, even if it's completely one-sided.

The most powerful example: You can fall hopelessly in love with someone who is completely unaware, or who doesn't reciprocate at all. Your feeling is real, the (unrequited) love is real, but it's a one-way street.

Friendship is the exception. It requires "mutual self-knowledge and will." It's a conscious, voluntary pact. It takes two competent, willing people to look at each other and agree, "Yes, we are this."

This is why you can impose many things on another person—a crush, an obsession, a lawsuit. But you can never, ever impose a friendship. If that feeling isn't reciprocated, it isn't "unrequited friendship." It simply ceases to exist. Or, more bluntly, "it never existed in the first place."

Friendship is a two-person team, or it's nothing at all.