Friendship: A Taxonomy

Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

1592

Abstract

privately through Facebook Messenger or Twitter direct messages</li></ul>I could go on, but I won’t, because it’s like fine-slicing a piece of cheese. And that’s just the means of communication. This doesn’t even address the nature of the communication, whether a friend is the sort who you’d call to let your dog out if you’re stuck at work and can’t get home on time, versus the sort of friend you enjoy being seated next to at a dinner party and talking about the topics of the day. And of course, there are those situational friends. By that I mean neighbors; parents of your kid’s friends; colleagues; the kinds of people who you enjoy and who know a lot about your life, but when the situation that brought you together changes, you might never see them again and their place in your life is immediately filled up by a new set of situational friends. Sometimes, one of them will persist beyond the circumstances that brought you together, but more often, they don’t.I came across my wedding photos the other day. I got married in 2001, which historically speaking wasn’t that long ago, but it’s long enough that my life has changed a lot since then. We’ve moved four times, had a kid, gone through career shifts. Many of the people in the wedding photos were the friends-for-life who, if I were to get married again today, would be in attendance again. I was a little shocked, though, by how many people at the wedding have fallen out of my life. They meant enough to me in 2001 that I wanted them at my wedding, but twenty years later, they no lon

Options

ger are in my foreground. Nothing happened — well, actually, time happened, and some friendships simply dwindle as the years whip by. Looking at the pictures, I felt a twinge thinking of friends I’ve made since the wedding who I wish I’d known back then so they could have come. Is there such a thing as a retroactive friend regret? I think I just invented it.Back to the communication piece: I am platform agnostic when it comes to friends. I adapt to their preferred mode, so I find myself bouncing between all of these methods of friend-connection. It’s dizzying. Sometimes I mix them up. I’d been texting a friend recently, and was frustrated that her responses were seldom, and curt. Suddenly, I remembered that she’s a FaceTimer, not a texter. She answered my FaceTime call immediately (something my non-FaceTime friends would never do) and was as chatty as can be. That same day I got an email from a friend reminding me that he really prefers emailing to texting, by way of explaining why he hadn’t replied to my last few texts. My sister only communicates with me via Facebook Messenger. Should I create a spreadsheet noting who uses which platform?My preoccupation with the subject of friendship soared during Covid. It seemed to reshuffle a lot of relationships — some friends notched up a bit, transitioning from occasional phone calls to nearly daily check-ins, and some friends who I hardly talked to became friends I visit with on Zoom now on a regular basis.Friendships endure, and they constantly change.</article></body>

The ones I see in real life, the ones I only text, the ones I wish could have been at my wedding

One of my hobbies is thinking about friendship. I marvel at how complex they can be, how many gradations of relationships can exist that can still dwell comfortably in a general category of “friend”. To me, romantic relationships are simpler: You’re either in it or you’re not. Friendship feels infinitely nuanced and more undefinable.

Technology has complicated this even further. It used to be that you had a friend, full-stop. You talked to them on the phone and saw them in person. I suppose there were the occasional penpals, and the summer camp friends who you reunited with for six weeks a year, but that was it. Now I have:

Friends I see frequently, in real life

Friends I don’t see that often but I text frequently

Friends I talk to on the phone

Friends I “see”, via Zoom or FaceTime

Friends I email but rarely text or call

Friends I communicate with via social media, by way of comments and replies on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter; and the smaller subset, friends I communicate with privately through Facebook Messenger or Twitter direct messages

I could go on, but I won’t, because it’s like fine-slicing a piece of cheese. And that’s just the means of communication. This doesn’t even address the nature of the communication, whether a friend is the sort who you’d call to let your dog out if you’re stuck at work and can’t get home on time, versus the sort of friend you enjoy being seated next to at a dinner party and talking about the topics of the day. And of course, there are those situational friends. By that I mean neighbors; parents of your kid’s friends; colleagues; the kinds of people who you enjoy and who know a lot about your life, but when the situation that brought you together changes, you might never see them again and their place in your life is immediately filled up by a new set of situational friends. Sometimes, one of them will persist beyond the circumstances that brought you together, but more often, they don’t.

I came across my wedding photos the other day. I got married in 2001, which historically speaking wasn’t that long ago, but it’s long enough that my life has changed a lot since then. We’ve moved four times, had a kid, gone through career shifts. Many of the people in the wedding photos were the friends-for-life who, if I were to get married again today, would be in attendance again. I was a little shocked, though, by how many people at the wedding have fallen out of my life. They meant enough to me in 2001 that I wanted them at my wedding, but twenty years later, they no longer are in my foreground. Nothing happened — well, actually, time happened, and some friendships simply dwindle as the years whip by. Looking at the pictures, I felt a twinge thinking of friends I’ve made since the wedding who I wish I’d known back then so they could have come. Is there such a thing as a retroactive friend regret? I think I just invented it.

Back to the communication piece: I am platform agnostic when it comes to friends. I adapt to their preferred mode, so I find myself bouncing between all of these methods of friend-connection. It’s dizzying. Sometimes I mix them up. I’d been texting a friend recently, and was frustrated that her responses were seldom, and curt. Suddenly, I remembered that she’s a FaceTimer, not a texter. She answered my FaceTime call immediately (something my non-FaceTime friends would never do) and was as chatty as can be. That same day I got an email from a friend reminding me that he really prefers emailing to texting, by way of explaining why he hadn’t replied to my last few texts. My sister only communicates with me via Facebook Messenger. Should I create a spreadsheet noting who uses which platform?

My preoccupation with the subject of friendship soared during Covid. It seemed to reshuffle a lot of relationships — some friends notched up a bit, transitioning from occasional phone calls to nearly daily check-ins, and some friends who I hardly talked to became friends I visit with on Zoom now on a regular basis.

Friendships endure, and they constantly change.