I was reading a blog post my cohort in crime Denise had written, and it set my mind on a course to consider friendships this morning. I guess it helped that I was surrounded by some of my very dearest friends during the weekend at my book release party, so I’ve been in a bit of a nostalgic mode the last few days.<\/p>\n
I am one lucky guy. I have two sets of very good friends, plus a few stragglers who fall outside the line.<\/p>\n
I suppose I should explain this. Growing up in Washington State, I forged some really great friendships, many that have endured decades of ups and downs, as is often the case with friends.<\/p>\n
Having also lived in Florida for seven years, I have another set of good friends there. I also have friends who live in the states that lie between the left and right coasts.<\/p>\n
I don’t have a lot of friends, like some people claim because I have a very narrow definition of what a friend is.<\/p>\n
I actually have several levels of friends: Acquaintances, Casual Friends, Close Friends and Kidney Friends. Oh, I can hear you now… what the hell is a Kidney Friend?<\/p>\n
I’ll start at the most basic level which is also the largest circle of “friends.”<\/p>\n
Acquaintances<\/strong><\/p>\n If you think about it, most of the people we call friends are actually acquaintances. Of course, Facebook isn’t going to open up a can of worms like this and add an “Acquaintance” button. You’re either a “Friend” or you’re not. I understand their desire to simplify, but it requires me to go in and manually categorize everyone anyway because I can’t keep track of 500+ people at once.<\/p>\n For me, an acquaintance is someone I have met online or through other friends. I know them casually. I don’t know an awful lot about them, and they really don’t know a lot about me. But when we’re together, we catch up with one another at various levels and enjoy one another’s company. However, if I called them when I was in jail, they would most likely let me rot there.<\/p>\n Casual Friends<\/strong><\/p>\n These are the friends that I have a history with. We may have spent some time together and perhaps even bonded during that time. A lot of pirates and wenches fall into this category. We have a great time when we’re together and will help one another out when we can as long as it’s not too much of an inconvenience. This is not to slight the relationship. It’s just that there is only so much time in a day and available time slots usually go to Close Friends and family first.<\/p>\n Casual Friends come and go with great regularity. Some may fall back into being an Acquaintance, others may ascend to the rank of Close Friend.<\/p>\n You didn’t know this could all be so complex, did you?<\/p>\n