The Value Of Acquaintances
Co-written by Etariemi Koboju
“Friend”, a very common and the most bastardized word on the planet (especially when the person is not even anywhere near being your friend in the real sense). It could just be the case that everyone wants to be buttered up by every single person they know. Not everyone is your friend, can be your friend or should even be your friend. It is okay to just have some people as people you know.
The word ‘Friendship’, entails a whole lot. It is a word that encompasses commitment and loyalty to another person. A friend is someone who shares the same value systems, ideologies and beliefs. Friendship is a conscious act of looking out for another, hence the loyalty that exists in it. In friendship, our ideals rob off on each other, our belief systems rob off on each other, our ideologies are better sharpened.
The holy book describes a friend as one who sticks closer than a brother. It further gave us the story of a beautiful friendship between Prince Jonathan and the Shepherd, David. Friendships are special. However, our aim in this article is not to discuss friendship, rather we aim to explore the word “Acquaintance.”
Over the years, the lines of boundaries and influence in relationships have grown thin because of how the label “FRIEND” has been carelessly passed around. This, in its own vein, has done more harm than good to many relationships. That colleague at work, the classmate in school, the neighbour, or the church member, are just what they are and that is just fine.
Tare: I had an experience a while back, I had just met up with an old classmate, we had not spoken in 5 years. And I was supposed to introduce her to another person and I said: “meet my old classmate.” While I feel this is sufficient enough, she took it as an offence, “why didn’t you introduce me as a friend?”
The earlier we accept to ourselves that not everybody is our friend, the better some things become for us, the easier it is to shield ourselves from extra obligations and unnecessary things. Being an acquaintance is enough. In some cases, more than enough.
In her book, The Defining Decade, Meg Jay talked about the strength of what she called “weak ties.” She defined weak ties as people whom we meet or connected to somehow but do not currently know well; they may be former associates, colleagues, college mates and whatnot. In most cases, we have more of them in our lives than strong ties who are people we know very well. Weak ties are, in the simplest of definitions, acquaintances.
Realizing early that some people are within this category helps in how we receive, perceive, appreciate and respond to them. Friendships are strong ties that breach these boundaries. These boundaries might include our private space, belief systems and ideologies. But, is it worth it to have acquaintances come so close. Is it also worth it to lose so many values you could have gotten due to boundaries because you let familiarity set it?
One of the values of acquaintances is networking. Networking in this context is recognizing and making use of the human resources (acquaintances) to achieve or get what you want.
Man is not an isle of knowledge, we all need help. The value of acquaintances is in their ability to render this help when we need it.
While friendship and over-familiarity might pose some restrictions, I agree with Meg Jay that a weak tie would force us to communicate from a place of difference, to use what Meg calls “an elaborate speech”. Our conversations are less likely to trail off as we tend to state our arguments and cases more clearly. In this way, weak ties (acquaintances within the context of our paper) promote and force thoughtful growth and change.
From maintaining conversations such as this, we create avenues for acquaintances to grant us favours, and as the saying goes, an act of kindness begets another.
