The question
Which quality in your friends matters most to you?Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
A fixed Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire item asked across its three-decade archive, with independent variants in friendship and profile interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Spanish professional tennis player, 2001–2024
The word says it all. To be a friend means that they are always there, for the good or the bad.
The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 1 October 2010 source ↗
If I haven’t seen them in years and yet can pick up conversation like it was yesterday.
Their loving forbearance.
Their responsibility to the friendship.
Compassion. Wisdom. Wit. The delicate balance of knowing when I need tough love and when I need support. Plus, call me crazy, but I’m also partial to friends who don’t surreptitiously record our calls.
Selfishness and no respect for the others.
Just normal people from my hometown, from my country.
If I don't do that with the bottles, then I sit down, I could be thinking of something else. If I do always the same things, it means that I am focused and I'm alert to think purely about tennis.
Sometimes when I'm in the first round or second round, and I'm not playing well, I say, okay, just accept it. Don't get frustrated. Just accept and focus.
These tics do bother me. Could I play a match without them? Yes, without some of them. I don't have to touch my nose or put my hair behind my ears before I serve. That's possible to stop. Not putting the bottles in front of my chair, I could go without that, too. But adjusting my underwear, that I could never get rid of. It's impossible.
Playing tennis, competing, winning, but also being at home in Spain, in Majorca, with my friends and family.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Pelé, Megan Rapinoe, Bernadette Peters, Jim Broadbent, Jean Smart
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