Thought Patterns. Part 2: Social Circles (are we dizzy yet?)

[matrix4b]

I have been thinking on some things lately as an on-going examination of things. Todays topic is all about various social circles and the weirdness that can entail.

Well to get into this some terms need to be identified as things that not everyone views with the same defintions: Friend, Associate, Aquaintence, Social Circle, Poly, and probably a few others.

Well sometimes the term friend can be a slippery one. I was recently told by someone I considered a friend that he only thought of me as an aquantence. True I did not consider him a close friend but to be called just an aquaintence was a bit of a suprise to say the least. There is another issue I have with said person but that is a post that might not happen due to my respect of that person. Basically I considered him a friend due to association over time and like minded thinking, being able to get along with him and the various exchanges of favors and things that I see as usually happening over time. Generally, If it is a person that you like to spend time with and can understand each others view points to a certain extent I might call them a friend. When growing up I was always told that in order to have friends you need to be a friend. This seemed at the time as sound advice that I do follow. I do strive for a certain amount of harmony in my life. Being a libra and someone that apreciates nature's balance, I can see the logic and sense of a statement such as that. The individual in question obviously defines friendship diffrently. I am not too sure how to crystalize my defintion of friendship into words to give an adiquite defintion. I do feel that just like there are many diffrent types of love there is also many diffrent types of friend. To be catagorically qualified and someone that is not a freind of a person in my mind eliminates all types of freindship. Now in all fairness an aquiantence could be considred a type of friend. So lets move on.

An Aquantence is someone that you met maybe a couple of time but have never bothered to even ask for their contact information. This is some one that you have "Made their auantence" and at the moment are not intrested in pursuing a deeper relationship. The case may be that you just haven't given it much thought or their intrests are not matching up with yours. Someone that you have only talked to a few times in a chat room might qualify. Once you get to know them they may be upgraded to assiciate. The two are not neccesarily inclusive or exclusive. An aquantence is not a person that you need to agree with on anything or a person that you need to even understand. In a social setting it helps to comprehend the same language.

An Associate is someone that you feel associated with or have a bit of a stronger tie. This is mostly due to things you feel that you may have in common. But that is not always the case. An associate you might not even like but it may be a co-worker as this is a type of associate. Here is where the terms get a bit murky. Defining an associate from an aquantence, though you could be both.

To be continude later as I need to go.



Part A of this section as I need to be going to a meeting.

Dave

Comments

I'm thinking...

[mtfierce.livejournal.com]

...that when I term someone an "acquaintance," it is someone I have had dealings with (probably what you'd term an associate) but not someone for whom I'd make sacrifices beyond what I'd do for any other human being. Those people for whom I'd make sacrifices would be "friends" of varying degree. The language doesn't really have a lot of fine tuning for all the various relationships people have, so I wouldn't put too much into the term "acquaintance." [shrug] To me, if someone I liked put me into that category, it'd be short-hand for, "We need to get to know each other better." I think it's because "friend" implies responsibilities to another person. [another shrug]

Re: I'm thinking...

[matrix4b.livejournal.com]

Well I did say that the two are not exclusive levels of socal interation. I do have to thank you though, you made me think. Perhapse that I personally have 2 classifications of friend and aquantance (sorry spelling sucks and somethings a spell checker only makes worse) and I am simply coming up with other terms to make me feel better about a recent friendship kinda breaking, I thought there was a good friendship started and was slammed down into some one telling me that they only thought of me as an acquaintance and not a friend. Friendship is a two way street, I think. I found that my efforts were going down a one way dead end street due to the fact that the other person had no intrest in being my friend but was only being my friend in order to have another relationship. Had I known that he thought this was a requirement of the other relationship I would have taken myself out of the picture as his friend as this is now way to have a good friend and not something that I would have based a friendship on. But as I said, You made me think about this and review what I was doing, Primarily over thinking something and doing so to the purpose of trying to make myself feel better about the situation. I now know the root of my feelings. Or at least one root. You have my heartfelt thanks for calling a bit of metaphorical "bullshit" on me and opening my mind up to what I was avoiding.

(Bows to the lady)

Dave