here's something I've been curious about: where does the line between friend and acquaintance exist for you? are there specific things that you look for in a friend, particularly close friends?
Adult - Plants-liking queer menace - Front-desk worker of a plural system - Unapologetic low-effort poster
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(fallen london stamps by @vagorsol)
here's something I've been curious about: where does the line between friend and acquaintance exist for you? are there specific things that you look for in a friend, particularly close friends?
i think a friend is someone i'll keep in touch with outside of their original context - i'll say yes if they ask me to hang out outside of work, or i'll stay mutuals even after we've both moved on to different fandoms. im friends with people that i find it easy to bounce ideas off of - they "yes and" my jokes into something even funnier, debate stupid shit with me for fun, help me turn a headcanon tweet into a whole story, etc.
I think a friend is someone you'd be comfortable talking to 1 on 1, either online or irl. That is, not just talking to them because you need to, like you would with a coworker.
I consider an acquaintance to be the "lowest" (non-derogatory) tier of interaction with someone that is still common enough that you know their name. I consider nearly everyone I interact with on this webbed sight an acquaintance.
For me, to break the barrier from acquaintance to friend, I'd have to talk to someone in a group setting enough to be comfortable enough (and know that I can be comfortable enough) to open up with them more
TBH I think it’s a bit of a grey line, but like a friend is someone I’d actively seek out to do a thing with, where as an acquaintance is someone I just know
Someone pointed out to me once that conventional American English is totally unable to label friendship with any level of finesse and ever since I have given myself permission to just careen along using whatever words won't make things worse. 😂
So for me the answer is less that there's a line and more that I analyze how I feel about someone in a number of unrelated dimensions (a few off the top of my head: enjoyment of their company, desire to do favors for, emotional intimacy, ease of talking to, and more!) then afterwards hold up the two labels like t-shirts and pick one based on vibes.
This is roughly as kludgy as if we had to flatten all of human sexuality to heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual and then had literally no other words for things. It's one of the language's biggest conceptual gaps imo!
-comes back several hours later-
a friend is someone I’d send a tiktok or a meme to with little more than maybe a “it you” or “birb”
i would never message an acquaintance unless it was like, work related or something.