Keep the friend who picks up at 1 a.m. and just says “talk.”

The rare thing is not sympathy, it is availability with no conditions attached. Plenty of people care about you in daylight when it is convenient. Someone who answers late, does not make you justify why you called, and just leaves room for you to speak is doing something most people never learn. They are not fixing anything, they are refusing to let you sit alone with it.

Make sure that friend knows the line runs both ways, and say it before you need it again. Answer once when the timing is bad for you. That is the whole membership fee.