In my personal experience, people have very different definitions for “friend” and “acquaintance”.
Having lived and worked in countries with military dictatorships, dangerous social, religious and political unrest, I have what I called a “Third World” definition of a friend. My definition of a friend is someone you can trust with your life and the lives of your friends and family.
This kind of friendship includes not doing things that can cause other people to be threatened or harmed to get to you, or who you may harm by revealing or even insinuating a confidence. I have lived in places where people write out a “Statement of Conscience” – which represents what they believe and stand for that can be used to counter anything they may be coerced into saying through threats or torture.
In the US, people frequently use ‘friend’ to describe someone they’ve had a good time with, an acquaintance or a colleague. Sometimes friendship with someone with status is falsely claimed in order to appear more important.
“Friending” and “Liking” people online adds to the confusion. First, the words mean different things to different people and add to the aforementioned cultural disconnects that can have drastic effects. One must also consider business transactions. You can make a business deal with a true friend on a handshake, but if no contract is in place and the business is bought or reorganized, you may find yourself empty-handed. In international business, even with a contract and a true friend, you can be thwarted by political, cultural and criminal factors. The following poem, which sprang to mind after I saw some social media statistics:
- Katy Perry has 55,805,985 Twitter Follows
- Shakira has 87,849,760 Facebook Likes
- William Scott Goldberg has 6223 Facebook Friends
- 4% of LinkedIn users have 3,000+ connections
Follows and Likes and Friends and Links
Billions of needy people
Screaming to be seen
Posts, videos, messages, pictures
And everything in between
For all of our exhibitionism
We live in front of a screen
Bereft of tactile contact
And nature so serene
To breathe, to run, to jump and play
Would not be so obscene
Better than salacious cons
Produced by those who preen
Let’s bring back hugs and recess
In playgrounds let’s convene
Let the Internet of Things
Be bereft of our Pings
As we regain our human mien
–Carolyn Turbyfill
One of my favorite songs is by Phil Ochs that ends with a zinger about a friend who knows too much: Love Me I’m A Liberal