The real sting of this definition lies in what it admits: that knowing someone thoroughly—their pettiness, their failures, the small cruelties they're capable of—is actually *harder* to love through than idealization ever was. Most of us are practiced at loving people we don't fully see. But when your oldest friend learns about that embarrassing thing you did at twenty-three, or witnesses your jealousy over something trivial, and chooses to stay? That's not sentiment—that's a verdict rendered in full knowledge. Hubbard is describing not the easiness of friendship but its rarest courage.