Redefining "friendships" and "acquaintances" (females, males, person)

[sugar1973us]

Friendships come and go throughout the years. As I get older, it's showing me those that will stand the test of time. I have been thinking if I shouldn't take a more proactive approach with some. I have been reconsidering what friendship is. Sometimes I do get conflicting feelings. My gut tells me that a true friend wouldn't act that way and the signs can be very subtle or gradual. I was once told that some friendships are like concentric circles. You decide who you keep close and there are varying degrees of closeness. And sometimes it changes, so you decide where you place that person in your life. I think what trips me up are those acquaintances who are too quick to label the relationship as friendship when I don't feel the same way. I find that with the ones who are more needy. I see myself as a people pleaser sometimes who really should learn to set boundaries.

I'm curious to see what experiences others had with coming to terms with defining friendships for themselves.

And I think that friendships old and new have been affected by social networking. To me, it has only made it more complicated. I'm interested in how males and females view friendships and how they handle changing it/breaking it off.

[Yiuppy]

I see people who don't really know me or care about my life as casual acquaintances, or people to just take up space for the time being but they aren't meant to be very valuable. I see friendship as being a much closer, trustworthy relationship.