Friendship is fragile because one may more or less freely disavow a friend; but the bonds are special, in part, precisely because we may walk away at any time. The freedom we all have to draw our own circle of affection does something to help explain why our friends are so precious: they are the chosen ones.
–Ethan J.M. Leib, Friend v. Friend

As you know, Bob, I think this is a simplistic way of looking at chosen relationships–I think very often we seek (or should seek!) to transform what Maggie Gallagher once called “You’re mine because I love you” relationships into “I love you because you’re mine” ones. My actual experience of friendship very strongly suggests a need and desire for friendships to become, over time, understood as given. Viewing friendships as endlessly-renewed choices may satisfy the Nietzschean, with his suspicion of mere promising and obligation, but I don’t think it can truly satisfy the friend. (I acknowledge that this insistence on submission to the friendship and self-sacrifice for the friend, while entirely in line with Catholic philosophy, to some extent undermines the classical emphasis on friendship as a realm where love and equality kiss each other.)

Leib’s whole book, in fact, is motivated by the understanding that friendship incurs obligations and constricts choice. So I’m not quoting this bit–from a much longer and more interesting discussion of criteria which mark true friendship–in order to criticize him. I’m just pointing out a commonplace, unexamined assumption that freedom is always the more romantic and admirable state than constraint.