I often hear well-married people say things like, "There is a person I can be around her that does not emerge elsewhere," or "I am not naturally like this but being married to him brings it out of me," or even, "She helps me become."

Which I never really understood. But, recently, it's begun to make more sense.

Let me think out loud here: There are certain people who, when I'm around, bring me out of me. Who I simply am more myself with. The conversation is natural and effortless and wildly generative for both of us and I seem to unfold more of who I am within that dialogue, saying anything that pops into my mind, saying things that surprise me, that I didn't even know were in me. Not only serious and deep but also full of laughter and smiles, switching between modes of seriousness that we instinctively meet each other on. Without trying. Without knowing how not to.

It's not just a matter of being comfortable around them, which I am, but there's something more mysterious and deeper at work.

It's almost like, to try an analogy, how some things taste more like themselves with salt. But not exactly because it's mutual and there's no solubility. One isn't absorbed into the other. Rather, something new emerges in each other's presence, the joint sum being greater and more true and human and enduring than each individual part.

I think this is true for all great relationships. Really, I think this is the very DNA of true friendship.