Demoted...

Where do you draw the line of who is a friend and who is an acquaintance. Most people have gone thru a list of supposed friends through-out the different eras in their lives: pre-high-school friends, high-school friends, college-friends and alas work-friends. However, sometimes an individual that was a friend before is no longer one now...they have now been demoted to a mere acquaintance. Is that really such a bad thing? To be demoted to an acquaintance. With some friends it's almost like who are we kidding to think that the two of us are still friends. The last conversation you've had with them, that was non-internet based, was over two years ago. You never see them, you never talk to them, all you do is send an occasional ping on GTalk or AIM and forward them a funny email with no personal content within. Does that stuff really count towards friendship? I would like to think that to be a friend you have to actually know something current about someone...other then what can be found on their facebook profile (i.e. single, works at Merrill, fav movie is Departed and fav book is Kite Runner). Furthermore, being demoted from a friend to an acquaintance does not make you a bad person...nor does it prevent you from being promoted back to friend sometime in the future. And there's plenty of benefits of being an acquaintance that friends don't enjoy...such as not being obligated to call on a birthday or having to offer a ride to the airport. If your a mere acquaintance and forget to call someone on their birthday...so be it...it's not your job...those duties are for a friend. People often feel that an acquaintance is the bottom of the bucket. This is not true...you still have strangers beneath you and further down the hierarchy are enemies. So in fact, an acquaintance is a 2 out of a 4 (with #1 being the best and reserved for friends). I don't mind being a 2....shoot, that's like getting a B in class without having to do any work!