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I read an interesting piece recently about how many of us lost certain levels of friendship during the pandemic. So I went searching for how experts define the various levels of friendship. I found some disagreement but the five most accepted terms for friendship seemed to be:
* Strangers
* Acquaintances
* Casual friends
* Close friends
* Intimate friends
The piece I read was making the point that many of us kept our intimate friends during the pandemic, and we kept some of our close friends, too. But then when it came to casual friends, we lost lots of them, and then we had almost no acquaintances or strangers in our lives.
At first, I thought, “So what? If I didn’t know your last name, or even your first name, what’s the big deal?” But the article made the case that we need all five types of friendships for our emotional health and development.
I found myself nodding along at certain points, because I did miss some of the people I only ever saw once a week at the office, or the grocery store worker I’d say hi to once a month. Those people brought some light to my life, even if it was only momentarily. And in the isolation of the pandemic, all that light was gone.
And more specifically, I started to think about how I really missed that level of friend within the recovery community. I had my sponsor and other members of my closest inner circle, and I stayed in touch with them for the duration of the pandemic. Same with most of my close recovery friends—I’d say I have about 20-25 sober men that I talk to on the phone once a month or more.
But then there was a huge drop-off in casual friends, acquaintances and strangers. And I felt that. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I felt it. There were so many people I missed from occasionally bumping into them at in-person meetings.
Let’s start with casual friends. I’d consider them people you see regularly at meetings and you might have gotten their number once, but you never called it. I had a bunch of people like that, that I never pulled the trigger on that next level of friendship and just enjoyed seeing them once a week at a meeting.
Then there’s the giant group of acquaintances. I consider these to be people you don’t exchange numbers with but enjoy seeing at meetings. For me, I subscribe to the idea that for the most part, if you are attracted to women, you stick to working closely with men in recovery, so a huge chunk of my favorite acquaintances are sober women. Most of those relationships were developed from seeing each other at meetings. I had almost zero contact with really awesome acquaintances during the pandemic.
And then at the bottom was the strangers level. Zoom was great, but it didn’t open up a lot of good opportunities to pull a newcomer off to the side and introduce yourself and strike up a conversation. Since in-person meetings have been back in my life, I’ve remembered how awesome it can be to meet a guy on the walk into or out of a meeting. Sometimes I don’t ever see the person again, but it was a pleasant introduction and a few good sober thoughts between two people who aren’t going to be best recovery buddies.
Since live meetings are back in action these days, I’ve really noticed the difference in bringing back all of my interactions with people in those last three categories: strangers, acquaintances and casual friends. I don’t know their full name, don’t have their number, and might not ever see again. But they’re sober. I’m sober. And they might be able to help me stay sober, and then they leave and we’re both sober.
Geez, that sounds like a sober one-night stand that doesn’t involve sex, huh? Well, I certainly was involved in not-very-healthy one-night stands when I was drinking, so I’ll count the healthy ones in sobriety as an important part of my recovery life.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
HEARD AT MEETINGS
“If you’re not getting mad at meetings, you’re not going to enough meetings.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, May 2001, Anonymous)
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