I have talked in the past about Circles of Friends and how they intersect with my life. Last night I was thinking of this again. And wondering what term you would use for people that are more than acquaintances but not close friends who know about your life.
And I am stuck on that.
It is the end of another year but more importantly another decade. I have many more circles of friends but how well do they know me and I them? We now live in amazing time where we can be socially connected to anyone in about .5 seconds. People we haven't seen in years, people we hide from our news feed, people we wish we could un-friend because they changed so much and yet Facebook calls them friends.
When I started this decade at 25 years old, I had a completely different group of friends. Now, at 35, my circles have expanded and grown just like me. But do I know one important thing in each of these friends' lives that impacted them in a dramatic way? Do I know their story? Probably not, some I do, but most of them I do not.
And I have assumed many things about people. I thought I could joke around with a former colleague but that person took offense to one of my comments. I guess at the end of the day you can have hundreds of friends, colleagues, drinking buddies but you only have a handful of friends. Friends who know that you are a happy person who has to deal with a lot, friends who you don't have to explain everything to, friends who at the end of the day, look at you and know what to say.
Maybe we all should take a moment and play that Junior High game of Truth or Dare and get to know someone before we make comments or judge or call them a friend. Because I bet we could all use a little more truth about each other and a little less dare. That is one thing I hope to work on next year.
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