What does the word friendship mean to you? What springs to mind when you think of a friend? For me, I tend to think of close friends. The ones I laugh with, cry with and vent to. The ones I share personal details with, and the ones I share the ins and outs of daily life with. However, that image doesn’t fit with everyone in my life I call a friend.
I know there are acquaintances, like for example the admin lady at the kids school or the friend of a friend to whom I might stop at say hello to at the shops but with whom I share no real friendship. But if I were with my husband and I was to run into one of these people I would introduce them in terms of how I knew them. For example I might say “this is Kate, she works in admin at the kids school.” I would not introduce or describe them as a friend, unless I was saying this person was a friend of my friend. It would seem impolite to use the word acquaintance even though it would fit the nature of the relationship.
But sometimes there is a degree of separation between an acquaintance and a casual friend. These people almost fit 2 categories, or are somewhere on the borderline between both. Take my hairdresser for example. I am her client, and as such it would be fair to use the word acquaintance. However, as my hair appointments take hours and we discuss personal details of our lives, it feels too formal for this relationship. We text outside of my appointments about things nothing to do with hair. However, as we don’t spend time together outside the salon…. The word friend also seems too deep and inaccurate.
Maybe that is because the relationship could go either way. It could blossom into something deeper over time where we do begin to spend time on a personal level outside a business setting. Or our communication outside the salon could fizzle and we could remain acquaintances – me her client and her my service provider. Although I like her and she appears to like me, I would call us friendly more than friends.
A close friend of mine was also recently commenting on the volunteer group she is a member of and how she enjoys being part of the team, and the friendly and caring nature of the people within it… yet there seems no interest in growing these connections into friendships beyond the concept of the group. So she was confused, and forced to question her perception of these people… or of her perception about friendships and what constitutes them in the first place.
In discussing this we came to the conclusion that perhaps both scenarios were what you would call casual friendships. That perhaps the word friend is the catchall and the word before it is the determining factor? Although the word friend on its own can mean exactly that. This person is my friend. I like them and see them socially, however we are not particularly close nor are we family or romantic in nature. So perhaps there is some sort of sub categorical system that is only acknowledged at the top tiers.
We refer to best friends and or close friends as categories, but perhaps friend itself is a category and below that is casual friend followed by acquaintance? And perhaps it is ok, important even, to have friends across the whole range of categories, because people grow and change. Somoene who was once a best friend may gradually reduce back to a casual one and someone who starts as a casual one may oneday grow into a close or best friend when the timing is right.
The key is not to try and push or force them into places they don’t quite fit and just see where things naturally evolve to. Not everyone who has potential to become close will, and not everyone who seems stand offish will stay that way. So just accepting and welcoming people from all the tiers seems like a valuable investment, enjoying each for the small or big pleasures they bring. It’s important to be patient, but also to not expect everyone to be interested in growing the connection further and not taking this personally or to mean that they don’t like you enough to be a friend.
Your casual friends probably already have quite a full circle and aren’t necessarily looking to take on more right now, although that could change for any number of reasons. Or, like my hairdresser in the above example, maybe we feel freer to discuss personal topics BECAUSE we aren’t friends as such? Because there is a degree of separation. It is usually wiser to get to know people personally a little slower; so maybe if we had intended on being friends in a real sense of the word we would have shared more carefully? That’s not to say it couldn’t work, who knows, just that it’s wise not to make assumptions that it will or should become more.
So casual friends have their place and their purpose…. Next week we will explore if having only casual friends is enough, and how one person can feel the friendship is on a different tier level than the other person…. Maybe even how to actively try and grow a casual friend into a closer one.
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
