{Friendship Friday} I've figured out a few things/ the 3 tiers of friendship

I have a friend spreadsheet which I've spoken about before. I track total meet-ups and just to satisfy myself, 1:1 socials too, because these are the most satisfying for me, hands down.

I classify a 1:1 social as me with a friend, or our family with one other.

Even one 1:1 social feels better than 2 - 3 socials with lots of people.

When I was doing my goals review for last month, I saw that I'd had 9 (yes NINE) socials in October.

That's too much and I could have skipped one or two.

However, October didn't feel as bad as August did. Both August and October had 10 socials but in August I only saw 1 friend 1:1 while in October I had 5 1:1 dates.

Isn't that fascinating? (even if just as a social experiment!)

I mentioned last time that it's really easy to tack a plan onto the end of a work day, or to the end of a meeting/ seminar/ conference if you're near where a friend lives or works.

It doesn't feel like a big schlep to get back in your car and go somewhere, because you're in your car anyway.

Has anyone tried it since last time I wrote?

I always get the best pics of Laura :)

Then I must tell you about this article.

Please go read about the 3 tiers of friendships..... I'll wait. It's really worth it.


To summarise...

• tier 1 friendship - those made in school/ university
• tier 2 friendship - pretty good friends
• tier 3 friendship - not really friends (social media friends!)

On point 3, a few of us met up with Shayne a few months ago and she said something that has stuck with me since.

"I know who my real friends are, and who my social media friends are, and I don't mix the two" (brilliant!).

We were talking about how, these days, it's so easy to think that social media friendship is real. It can be real but it can't only be a social media relationship for it to be real.

I'm quite taken with this 3-tier idea, of course, because I am someone who loves to categorise things.

And here's the thing - I don't have tier 1 friends. I've spoken before about how I changed when I became infertile. As one commenter said, infertility awoke a need for connection in me.

I have a fair number of tier 2 friends now (that's a good thing because when I wrote that post 5 years ago I had almost none) and I'd like to think many of them are more than just "pretty good friends" but is that me being optimistic? Sometimes I think yes. But sometimes what we think is the situation is not actually the situation as I've found out quite a few times over the last 5 years. I tell myself that boundaries have to be respected.... but it still hurts.

I do know I've had too much hurt, etc. with the friendship thing and I have even said to D, "I'm over this - I'm going back to the good old days when it was just you and me against the world". He laughed! That's my way of protecting my heart, I know. 

This time around when I pray for friends (last time a few people wrote about how we lack nearby friends) - I've started making my list - I'm putting items on there called "people who are as into me as I am into them" and "willing to be vulnerable and connect" :)

So tell me about your thoughts on the different tiers... and what would be on your friendship list (even if you're not a praying sort)? 

isn't Cat's hair gorgeous?