Perennial Acquaintances

I’m sure you’ve met people who are nice, friendly, as interested to get to know about you as you are about them.  They have many friends and seem to know everyone who’s anyone from different industries, age, sexuality, creed and background.  They are unassuming and make great conversationalists who can talk about any topic under the sun.  They are not judgmental and no one is too good or too bad to be their friend.  And most importantly, they do not make friends to further their cause or business.  They just like people without any ulterior motives or agenda.

Sounds like the ultimate perfect friendster, eh?

Until you realize that such friends come with certain limitations.  They forget what you have told them and what they have told you.  They still remember important stuff, of course.  What you do, your phone number, important dates, your close friends, your hobbies.  It’s probably safely contained in their rolodex – how else can they keep track of so many friends?  But for the life of them, they can’t recall that the trivial news that they have shared to you and may share that bit to you over and over again.

Secondly, you can’t get closer to them after a certain stage.  The friendship has breath but not much depth.  It becomes frustrating if you want to get to know them better and hang out more but they are perfectly contented to remain just slightly better than acquaintances.  And yet their friendship base keeps growing exponentially.  These people find much pleasure in collecting friends that I call them the friend collectors. 

Reading Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point just confirms my ‘findings’.   He also calls them friend collectors but has another name for them – Connectors.  They have a valuable place in society because they can connect the right people together and make things happen.  When you are in a technological field, chances are, you’ll never meet people from a niche theatrical arena.  But Connectors who know all sorts of people would.

Now, normally folks would not dispense much effort in increasing the number of acquaintances and prefer to put in more effort in cultivating close friendships.  Connectors, however, get a high from getting to know a new acquaintance to put into their rolodex so that they can cultivate the friendship – at an arm’s length, of course.

That is normal when it comes to Connectors.  We know it takes a lot of resources to maintain deep friendships.  Connectors just spread their attention fairly (give or take) to their large brood of friends. 

You may never hope to have a Connector for a best buddy but you can never have a more accepting person to have great conversations with whenever they can spare the time.

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