Janet Barclay’s last blog post..A Life of Laughter

i think this redefinition of “friend” is very much in flux. i don’t think we would have had this p;ost a year ago. so let’s make a date – let’s see where “friends” are in june of 2009!

@PhD the point about intimacy is interesting, especially, again, in connection with services like twitter and facebook. as much as i honour my twitter friends (twitter isn’t my home page for nothing) i wouldn’t say that i experience intimacy there.

@ashok – i was thinking about you as i was writing this post, actually. you are one of my very first and treasured blogging friends. and that even though we are so different, on so many levels …

what you say reminds me of the expression “just” friends. to me, true friendship (prendship?) is the highest form of relationship.

“recognized and valued” – yes, that’s what happens in true friendship. i saw this sappy movie last night and one good thing in it was helen hunt saying about the new man in her life, with this intent expression: “he sees me.”

ashok’s last blog post..Going. Back?

phd in yogurtry’s last blog post..please sir, I want some more

Musing about the word friendship is something I do with a close friend (a prend of mine, as Evan would categorize him) very, very often. I find that the word “friend” is way too vague and therefore we need the qualifiers “facebook friend” or “blogo-friend”.

I consider you, for example, a close friend. You are someone I met through the blogosphere, whom I’ve grown to care for, and whom I admire a lot. Same thing has happened with a number of other blogosphere-friends.

I have a Theory of Concentric Circles, that assumes that those closer to me are in the inner circles. Those friends who are less close are in the outer circles. I have modified this theory to reflect the fact that, through time, a lot of friends can change their closeness yet still remain friends. That would mean that the concentric trajectory may not be a circle but an ellipse.

I also think that friend is NOT someone you know for a few weeks or whom you don’t really have an interaction with. If you notice on my Twitter, the number of people I actually follow is pretty much (with the exception of two or three in the US) people with whom I’m friends in real life, friends I met through the blogosphere.

I have now a lot more Twitter followers than people I follow because I haven’t had a chance to really meet them in person and follow them reciprocally, in general.

Ok, this was way too long of a comment and I haven’t had coffee yet. Hope to have contributed to the discussion!

Raul’s last blog post..Persuade Me: Why and how should I join Facebook?

Evan’s last blog post..A Psychological Health Checklist: awareness, spontaneity and intimacy