Feeding My Ignorance

A few things have triggered me to think about friends recently - yes, I know I always will be thinking about friends, but I mean here thinking about the 'concept' of friends rather than the people themselves!

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There is no doubt, in my view anyway, that the Facebook model of having a single category of friend - be it one or several thousand - is flawed but is there a really good model?  Well I suspect that there are several, but I also suspect that the reality is that everyone might have a different view.  The result of my musings is that I have come up with five 'levels' of friend - these are a bit like concentric Google+ 'circles'.  There are, of course, other groupings within (and between) the levels and, although described as such, it is rarely a black and white decision as to where the boundary between these circles actually is.

Before outlining the five levels there are two other levels which I need to describe - they are level -1 where sits the huge majority of people on the planet that I have never come into contact with and level 0 - the rather less large, but still significant, number of people whom I have come into contact with, but don't actually 'know' - e.g. the bus driver who gave me a ticket as I boarded the bus, or the waiter in a restaurant.

1. Acquaintances - These are a very considerable number of people whom I have met and 'know', but with whom I share very little else.  In order to get here from level 0 we would at least need to know each other's name and (probably) remember the next day that we had met.  Again, not necessarily clear cut whether level 0 or level 1 in many cases, but I would count within this group many of the folks who work on the same site as I do, or whom I have met at a conference or similar.  (in attempting to quantify how many people are at this level I came to the figure of 55% of all the folks in the five levels)
2. Friends - In order to progress from level 1 to level 2 there needs to be more interaction - friends are people with whom I have had some social interaction - not necessarily personal, many business people would come into this category.  With this group of people I would be comfortable that we 'knew' who each other was and a little bit of background. (there are about 35% in this level)
3. Good Friends - The significant difference here (I think) is that interaction with a level 3 person is something that happens regularly and (often) for no reason other than the fact that we want to be together and share common interests.   This is, I think, a much more select group - as you can already work out from the percentages already taken and only about 7% of my 'friends' population get as far as level 3.  These are people who really do know each other quite well and who (perhaps by necessity) find themselves in each other's company a lot - many work colleagues fall into this bag.
4. Buddies - only 2% get this far - it is a very select group and is limited to people who are really quite close.  Anyone who has attained buddy status must be someone with whom you feel extremely comfortable - they probably know a few secrets about you and vice versa.  Typically, these would be people within a social group who 'hang out' together, attend events together, have parties together, will visit each other's homes and so on.  They really are quite close.  It is already a select group.
5. Inner Circle - The select few - people who have shared your life in some sense.  Obviously this includes your close family plus just a small number of special people.  The make up of this will depend on the individual's life style - for me around half of this group is family (past and present) with the addition of a few people who, throughout my life became very close to me.  It is likely that people in this group have got there either by the length of the friendship, or by the intensity - clearly you don't need to be married for long before your wife/husband belongs to this group (if they haven't already reached that status) - conversely someone who has been your buddy for many years will eventually grow into the inner circle - I can think of workmates here who have been around so long that it is difficult to remember life without them.

One thing to be made clear is that 'promotion' to a higher level is - I think - irreversible.  The inner circle at any one time probably consists of just your close family and less than a handful of others.  The composition of that handful will inevitably change over time from school friends to workmates to members of your other social groups, but it will probably rarely grow significantly.

Additionally, very few people will remain (active) in that inner circle for a long time - I guess that the longest serving member for me is undoubtedly my mum!

It is interesting to me that members of the higher levels may be out of your life for a long time, but they don't ever relinquish that 'special' place that they have attained - in some cases after just a relatively short time - it doesn't need much time to pass for an individual to climb through the levels.  I can certainly think of a number of people who rapidly went to level four or five - and I can think of others who have 'matured' to the higher levels rather more slowly.

So - what does this mean for me?  Well I guess I must be grateful for having such a wonderful group in my inner circle (and indeed in the buddies group)!  Not all of them are 'active' members of the group now - but they have all made a huge impact on my life one way or another.  I thank them for that.

The other thing that intrigues me is that as you move higher in the levels of friendship so you find greater diversity in the relationships.  At lower levels everyone is "much the same" in terms of how you interact.  By the time you reach the inner circle everyone is very different.  I love my wife in quite a different way to how I love my children - and each of  them has a quite different relationship with me.  There are, I think, no two people in that inner circle who I relate to in the same way.

This, of course means that the very people that you are closest to are the people who are hardest to 'deal with' because it needs to be much more tailored to them personally.  Therefore we must work at understanding them as much as possible - but it is therefore also far too easy to do the wrong thing!  So, perhaps, the relationships with those in the inner circle are the most volatile as well as being the strongest - it is relatively hard to upset someone who is 'just' an acquaintance - it is far easier to upset a bosom buddy (although on the upside you would hope that they are more likely to find forgiveness for any upset you cause).

As I say, I am grateful to have been blessed with so many people who are friends in a far more meaningful way than 'just' hooking up on Facebook or any of the other social networking sites.