Having thought about my original post a bit longer (and having pontificated a bit about some related topics in other posts) it is necessary to further expand the thinking about ‘layers’ or ‘levels’ of friends.
One reason for the clarifications put forward here is the fact that I have been nudged about the fact that there are significant cultural differences regarding what is ‘acceptable’ in terms of friendship. This is, of course, correct and not only are there cultural differences, but there will also be individual differences as well – not everyone has the same attitude or receptiveness towards friendship.
So I guess to clarify where I am going it should be made abundantly clear that the layers only apply to me – perhaps others can find some resonance in my descriptions, but that is (possibly) only coincidental.
Additionally – the reality is that there are no hard and fast levels – what we have is a continuum and as people ‘rise’ from level 1 to level 5 by my list they are not doing it in a single step but slowly sliding from one to the next.
Another concept that has been introduced to my thinking since the original post is that of degrees of intimacy – the higher the level, the greater the intimacy. This was hinted at, of course, but I’m grateful for the precision of this notion being introduced to my thinking.
So – that has clarified a couple of things from the original. I now want to go beyond it in one way by further carving up the crowd of people that I have now co-opted on to my list of friends. This carving up is necessary because the reality is that I operate from day to day in several different worlds which only rarely come together.
One of my work colleagues is fond of saying “there is no parallel universe” – meaning that there is no way to really carry out experiments whereby we try one thing in one world and an alternative in another to compare the results. Often the initial experiment will make it impossible to create the same initial conditions for the subsequent experiment rendering any comparison less meaningful.
Whilst this is true, so is the fact that we each operate in a number of ‘parallel universes’ all the time – some more so than others – you can imagine that an actor will enter a very specific parallel universe every time he takes on a role. So we go about our daily activities and take on a number of different roles. The amount of overlap will vary depending on the individual, but I can think of many quite disparate ‘universes’ that I inhabit that very rarely come in contact with each other for one reason or another.
My day-to day work necessitates that I don’t “take it home with me”, therefore I don’t discuss the details of what I have been doing with anyone other than my work colleagues. Even if we socialise together, we still do not spend much time (if any) on work subjects.
As part of my professional development I spend a fair time online conversing with my “cyber” friends around the globe. Many of them I have never met in person and probably will never do so, but they (to varying degrees) are certainly part of my social network – and they do not interact with the rest of it (with one or two exceptions).
My family is separate to both of these previous groups – and so I could go on. (I should stress that although I do occasionally use cyber means to contact members of my family they are very much ‘real’ friends rather than ‘virtual’ friends) 😀
Progression up the ‘intimacy levels’ is clearly different depending on which of the many groupings you are discussing. Whilst it is certainly conceivable that someone would become a “cyber buddy” I wouldn’t pop out for a meal with him in the same way as I might with a “real buddy”!!
So it might be across different cultures – a high degree of ‘intimacy’ in one culture could well be synonymous with a much lower degree of ‘intimacy’ in another. I have been told more than once that showing certain behaviours is “not the *****an way” – and that (again) will also be applicable to individual behaviours as well as lumping together ‘cultural’ groups.
So – there is much more to come here – but to sum up so far – the amount of ‘intimacy’ shown to one member of my “level 5” may not be the same as that shown to another – but that doesn’t stop them both being in my “inner circle”. (or anywhere else down the levels)