Tolstoy writes: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  Contrast Tolstoy with the aesthete Nabokov:  ‘All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike….”

A lightbulb went on as I was reflecting on the dire dilemma – Tolstoy  or Nabokov or (where is Freud when I need him?) – and the more salient proposition became clear: “all true friends give us energy when they hear our stories.  Storytelling to  everyone else drains our energies.”

Others have expressed the same sentiment in different ways.  Recall Sir Francis Bacon’s observation that a friend is someone with whom one gains greater joy by sharing a joy and reduces sorrow by sharing the sorrow.