What makes this wisdom sting is the asymmetry it insists upon—we're counseled to be *suspicious* at the gate, yet absolute once inside, which is precisely backwards from how most of us operate. We rush headlong into companionship (flattered by attention, lonely, or simply eager) only to withdraw coolly when the friendship demands something difficult. Socrates asks us to reverse this: interrogate carefully at first, then stay put even when affection becomes inconvenient. Consider how we might have kept a friend we abandoned after a misunderstanding, had we entered the friendship with proper caution but then refused to let that bond dissolve at the first strain—the steadiness he describes is rarer and more costly than the initial warmth.