How to Make Friends Without Using a Spreadsheet

Apparently, there are six levels of friendship which describe the closeness of our relationships. We have pre-acquaintances, a term which does bring to mind those motivational posters which tell you that a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet, and we have higher-level acquaintances, and then there are pre-friends, and… that’s enough. You get the idea.

If you like this system you could adopt it wholesale, or even add your own calibrations. Many happy hours await you, drawing a pyramid diagram, perhaps, with colour coding, or how about a spreadsheet? What better way to acknowledge and celebrate the people in our lives than to rank them in order according to their importance?


Engage and experience

Of course it’s a good thing to focus on the nature of our friendships, if we are lucky enough to have relationships and connections, but there is something soul-destroying about imposing pseudo-scientific practices on the organic, messy, delightful, frustrating experience of engaging with friends.

Labels and definitive descriptions can be helpful, but it’s possible to over-concentrate on applying not-very-helpful analytical tools and forget about embracing real-life experiences.

It’s a bit like digging up plants to see how they’re doing, Maybe images which are less formulaic would be more appropriate.

Given the shifting, changing nature of our lives, our friends and acquaintances could be seen as falling into a mosaic pattern, with pieces floating around, colliding, moving closer, drifting away, drifting back — just as we do, in where we stand in the lives of others.

There is something diminishing about this kind of checklist. A pre-acquaintance, evidently, is someone you know by name only, which doesn’t really make sense, does it, because you will know them in a context — someone in your yoga class, a school-gate parent, someone you see regularly in the pub or coffee shop, someone on the same course as you… You know more than just this person’s name.

And if you are fixated on levels and hierarchy, how do you respond if the person makes an overture of friendship, like suggesting you grab a coffee, or offering some information about the kind of day they’re having, or comments on how fed-up, happy, worried you seem? Here’s a problem! Are you ready to escalate to acquaintance level? Better consult the spreadsheet before you do anything rash!


With pre-friends like this…

You can have pre-friends, too. These are people you care deeply about and are strongly connected to, but don’t see on a regular basis. What? Deep connection and affection don’t rate a full friend tag? Surely something wrong here.

Of course there is no need to take these ideas seriously if they don’t suit your way of seeing the world. What we might be concerned about is the habit of scrutinising and analysing our personal connections in terms of what we get from them, and forgetting that we ourselves might have a low position in someone else’s list. Imagine discovering that the person you meet in your book group, or photography class, and have struck up quite a nice friendship with, sees you only as a distant acquaintance. It could dampen the enjoyment you find in each other’s company.


Pick up the pieces

And in the end, what’s the point? It may be better to relax and let go, throw away the charts and spreadsheets and take your chance. Friendship and human connections are vital, and should be nourished. Don’t be scared of communication. Don’t hide behind figures and theories. Try going with the ebb and flow of the lovely, colourful dance of the mosaic pieces.

After all, James Taylor didn’t sing: ‘Ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a level 1 acquaintance who might become a pre-friend if a vacancy arises’.


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