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A Pixelated Mind

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The recipe for byte-sized acquaintances

I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about a previous post of mine that got me into all sorts of trouble with my [label missing]s at the time. If you’ve not read that post, just know that I boiled down all friendship into the following five types:

  1. True friends who know everything about you, who you talk to regularly, and who you could say absolutely anything to. I’m sure they exist. . . somewhere.
  2. Good friends who you spend a lot of time with, you could talk to if you had problems.
  3. Buddies who are a blast to be around, but you would likely not ask them to help you paint a barn if the situation came up.
  4. Friendly Acquaintances who you talk to if you run into them, but don’t do much outside of your usual sphere of influence.
  5. Byte-Sized Acquaintances who you say hi to when you walk by but not much else.

What bothered me about this list was a throw-away line in Fight Club about single-serving friends. A single-serving friend is a person you talk to for a set amount of time (say an airplane flight). What makes them single serving is the fact that you’re forced to be together and you might as well just talk to them and get to know someone.

This led me to a realization about human interaction: people are often forced to be around people they otherwise would not be. It sounds to me like the perfect time to write another list!

  1. Single-serving friends. As already discussed, single-serving friends are people you meet at a bar or in
  2. Friends of convenience. People who live near you, classmates, church-goers, your favorite waitress, anybody who you see enough to recognize and like enough to possibly talk to. Sadly, often times these are confused for real friends. As in all confusions and miscommunications, feelings inevitably get hurt.
  3. Intragenerational. Many people become friendly with their friends’ parents, teachers or other authority figures. And vice versa. These could theoretically be a subset of ‘friends of convenience’ but for the fact that there are added mitigating factors. These friendships also vary tremendously so as to make prescriptive judgments.
  4. Colleagues. Coworkers or roommates, but this level of forced ‘friendship’ requires a far more regular level of interaction. Furthermore, the lack of a defined end (as in a friend of convenience) makes a coworker/roommate a seemingly more lasting bond. . . seemingly.
  5. Family Members. Family members naturally feel like they have a deeper connection than non-blood relatives. The only reason this is so is because family members are almost impossible to get rid of.

While it’s important to note that just because someone might be one of these (i.e. a family member) does not necessarily exclude the possibility of them being a friend. However, it should force you to reevaluate what you thought you knew. Perhaps you really aren’t that good of a friend with your coworker. Have you ever done something outside your sphere of influence? Do you call each other or are you content to never be true buddies?

The original friendship types list was limited in that it assumed a mutual freedom to walk away on both parties. In real life, there are certain situations where it is simply unlikely or uncomfortable to avoid the other party. I call those situations ‘daytime.’

This list is limited in the exact opposite way. These aren’t friendship proper, but they do have similarities to the true form of friendship. They are interpersonal bonds that should not be devalued (or overvalued). A key that should be kept in mind in this discussion is that of what happens after you no longer have to see a person you once considered a friend but was really a colleague? Do they still call you and talk to you? Did they ever? Or do you just say hi to each other as you walk by? Do you understand the title of this blog post now?

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I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about a previous post of mine that got me into all sorts of trouble with my [label missing]s at the time. If you’ve not read that post, just know that I boiled down all friendship into the following five types: True friends who…