The recipe for byte-sized acquaintances

By Pixel at April 16, 2007 at 3:52 pm. Filed in language

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!

Continue reading The recipe for byte-sized acquaintances…

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