Every time a person is in front of me, I start to assess. In my head, I’m like, “What are you, really?”

Acquaintances, friends.. Do you not know the difference?

I always come across people who do not know the difference between friends and acquaintances. It’s a common mistake. Why? I’m sure as hell I didn’t know the word “acquaintance” back when I was really young. One way or another, I would have been introduced to the word “friend” first. Hence, Everybody we know is a friend to us by default. But what really is the difference between friends and acquaintances?

An acquaintance is a person we know (but is not usually a close friend). A friend is a person we are attached to by feelings of affection or personal regard.

Do you know those people who are so proud of having thousands of friends on Facebook? I find them annoying. Do not get me wrong, social networking sites are great with connectivity. It is their main purpose after all. And I had the chance to actually meet great people because of the web. But come on, blabbering about your number of friends? It’s not something to proud of. I’d rather be one of those people who have a few but fully functional friendships (on and off Facebook).

I mean, hey, when your birthday comes, the number of your greetings isn’t directly proportional to the number of your friends. It might even be something like.. “372 friends posted on your wall.. (out of 4000).”