Friends

Currently, my mind categorizes platonic relationships into 3 categories:

Acquaintances
Friends
Close friends

I am still experimenting with the boundaries between each category and the definitions of each category, but I’ll share some of my current thoughts and experiences.

Acquaintances

Examples of interactions with acquaintances:

Wave in the hallway
Met once or twice through mutual friends or events

While there no one clear-cut action or “pivotal moment” that makes an acquaintance into a friend, I think one way this may happen is through grabbing a couple of meals together. However, this is where things become more nuianced. You can have one meal with someone and never talk to them again. You can have a great conversation at an event but never see or wave at each other in the halls. Someone who is a friend is more consistent than an acquaintance. How that is determined, however, is not concrete and has to be mutual. Someone who you may see often may not be interested in furthering their relationship with you or maybe you just don’t vibe or have similar interests.

Examples of interactions with friends:

More consistent meals/hangouts
Feeling comfortable opening up about more personal topics
Working together or hanging out outside of classes

As I mentioned, the line between acquaintances and friends is already pretty blurry but I think the line between friends and close friends is even blurrier. While I made these separate categories, I feel like this is really a spectrum.

Another aspect that makes this model more unclear is the fact that people may satisfy different parts of your life. It is unfair to ask one person to be simultaneously an emotional support, boba buddy, exercise trainer, academic motivator, and philosopher. There are people who may have great emotional advice but doesn’t like the same food as you. There may also be a friend who you love to exercise with but maybe they don’t enjoy philosophical conversations as much. Does this prevent them from being a close friend if they can’t be everything you need at the same time? It feels like too much to ask of one person. I am definitely still working on trying to move towards this model.

Close friends

Examples of interactions with close friends:

Feeling comfortable being yourself around them
Not feeling pressure to be a certain version of yourself
Going to them during your worst and best times
Doing spontaneous activities together

For me, I think it takes a longggg time to build close friends. It takes time being familiar and comfortable with people. Sometimes it might even just depend on “vibes” or how it feels to interact with someone.

When someone does become my close friend, they are people I put a lot of effort into keeping in my life and I have a higher expectation that they would want to do the same. The most important values to me is initiation, consistency, understanding, and trust.

From the blog about people in my life, I have a lot of thoughts about people who enter and leave my life. Because of my experiences, I am trying to learn how to build connections that can grow into close friendships.