Even though a friendship may be an intense loving relationship, important and essential to one's life, it is also different and distinct from erotic love in that friendship, unlike love, does not seem to be blind.
Love has a tendency to make people blind to the faults of the beloved.
Friendship, in that sense, is broader-minded.
I may see physical or personality blemishes in a friend; my friend may be insufferable, or a bore, or may have even worse qualities.
Nevertheless, a friend is still a friend, and may be a close and very dear friend, even with a long list of blemishes.
Moreover, even someone who is a liar will never lie to a friend, and one who is inept will do his best for a friend.
Indeed, when choosing a friend we are not searching for a goddess or a knight on a white horse.
Rather, we are trying to find somebody we can rely on, with whom we can have a relationship that ties us together as a unit.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From Simple Words by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz