Friends or Acquaintances

You’ve got dozens of them on Facebook and a bunch of other ‘networking’ sites and applications … but are they really friends?

A great post today from Seth Godin titled “That guy who saved my life” defining the difference between true friends and the ‘friends’ we seem to collect online.

I would have to admit that there are many people who I’ve only ever ‘met’ online who I consider as friends. They’re the sort of people that I’d love to sit down with at a local cafe to enjoy a coffee and a couple of hours chatting. I like to think that there’s a sense of connection that comes out of sharing part of our lives online.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting some of those friends through blogger meetups and while travelling. I’ve been more than pleased to catch up with a few bloggers who have been visiting Perth and it was great to meet some bloggers in Sydney and Melbourne when we were there about 18 months ago. In fact, one of my major dissapointments of that holiday was that there were a couple of people whose schedules meant that we never got to meet face to face.

Having said that, I understand what Seth is saying and that there will always be those who are closer as friends than others. I suppose we sometimes need to put our friendships in perspective and ensure that those close to us in the ‘real world’ aren’t missing out on our time.



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