living and learning

I have quite a few good, close friends. Of those friends, there are about three with which we have an unspoken motto, if you will: "live and let live."

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind my other friends butting in on my personal life, being very outspoken about their opinion on my actions. That's what friends do, and sometimes it's necessary. For instance, if I started frequenting dark alleys subconsciously, I'd like one of them to point out how incredibly stupid that was.

It's nice, though, to be best friends with people, able to share anything and everything, and not have them judge you for something you've done or are doing. Well, I don't necessarily mean judge; that implies that my other friends are jerks. What I'm trying to say is with this smaller group, we don't care what each other does. We will give our opinion, we don't fight about it, and we let each other live and learn. There's only so much advice you can shove at somebody before they're going to go do their own thing anyhow, right? And who's to say what didn't work for you won't work for them?

One of my friends had a boyfriend to whom she tried explaining this concept after he had just stopped talking to one of his friends who started dating a girl he didn't like and/or approve of. Now, this particular boyfriend turned out to be a mentally abusive douche, but that's beside the point. He didn't understand the "live and let live" concept - in fact, he told her it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard, and you had to "protect your friends" and "tell them what you really think." For the former, I have no argument. For the latter, I'd say, we aren't keeping anything from each other, we're just not presenting it in an I'm-going-to-tell-you-my-opinion-and-you'd-better-do-as-I-think-or-we're-fighting sort of way.

What do you think? Do you let your friends live and learn? If yes, with or without any input? If no, why not?