Are Superficial Friends The Answer?

I don't want acquaintances. I don't want superficiality. I want real friends who'll listen, who'll emote, and who'll see me as kindred in some way.

At some point in my life, I made a conscious decision to choose only those friends who were open to sharing deep emotions with me. It's like I wanted people I could vent to, open up to, spill my guts to, without judgment, and I'm not sure that was a healthy decision.

Why? Because choosing only the friends who I can share my deepest feelings with limits my options. It limits my friends into two categories: Actual friends, and near strangers. With me, there seems to be no middle ground. Either you emote with me, either you tell me your darkest secrets and listen to mine, or you fall into the periphery of my world. I am suddenly wondering if this is wise. I am wondering if this isn't the biggest mistake I am currently making.

I can count only three people in my life (not counting here) who are willing to listen to my BS, my sad-sack stories of loneliness, my stories of the attempts to change this. I have a certain number of Facebook friends, and I can maybe name ten of them who I actually care about. (I don't mean that I wish the others harm, only that the others are not close enough to me to know my birthday, know the name of my family members, or have my phone number.) Anyway, about those three, as we all know, no one likes being around someone who isn't happy. No one chooses to be friends with a burden, and I fear losing what little support I have.

It's become clear to me that many people are too busy or afraid to emote this deeply, so these barriers make it increasingly difficult to make real friends. For many, it's too painful to open up like I wish. And so they drop away, out of my preferred circle.

So, is the answer not emoting and being superficial to people? I wish I could be the kind of guy who enjoyed small-talk with these peripheral people, the ones who'll never be truly close to me. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so alone. And even though I'd have superficial contact with these people, superficial contact is better than no contact at all.

Deep connections still matter to me, and I try to make them whenever I can, but if my standards for friendship are so specific that I refuse to be a part of someone's life who won't show me their inner selves, what am I but an emotional elitist? What am I but someone who demands friends who pass my silly tests for expressing emotion?

Wouldn't it me better to make tons of meaningless, superficial friends? Or, should I just be thankful that I have the three intermittent friends that allow me to be real with them when they have the time for me?

Have you attempted to cultivate more superficial friends for the same reasons?

I personally have been thankful for those friends of mine I can confide in and will listen too my sap stories. Those are becoming fewer and fewer, now that we are growing up and moving on with our lives. I like the fact that I can pick up the phone and my best friend and sister will answer and listen to all my woes and worries. It's a two-way street though, you have to listen to them as well.

I have 438 friends on Facebook, and I actually have thought about deleted my account, because who the hell on there cares if I am having a bad day and I post it? Not a whole lot. I think quality of friends outweighs quantity for the most part.

Case, I'm just like you in that I want friends who I actually talk to about deep/emotional topics. I find with this standard though it is getting more difficult to have this kind of friend as I get older, but it's probably a result of my lack of attempts at socializing and making myself something of a force that people want to converse with.

I don't think it's all that bad to have friends who you aren't close to though, that status can change depending on how your paths collide. Unless you're trying to force topics that they are simply not interested in.

I actually tried to engage in a few topics of conversation with about 4 contacts from my Facebook account that I know from High School and it was met with very low interest. I find it fairly difficult to escalate the interest without any meaningful common ground but I don't think the path to development is non-existent it's just that I haven't discovered it yet.

I've always been quite radical about that as well. When it seemed like a certain friendship could only reach a superficial or a one-way level, I abandoned it eventually. This left me with literally just one handful of real friends.

It's one of the reasons why I only spent little time on platforms like Facebook. After one year I had 10 friends which I had hand-picked carefully. Reliable and trusty people. The kind you can have hours-long serious conversations in the middle of the night with.
The concept of having more than 50 actual "friends" is a mystery to me. So I left. I'm not the right kind of person for Facebook & Co.
I don't need a horde of fleeting party people for friends...

Though I must admit that I have an unhealthy fixation on deep and serious topics at times...yeah, I'm not much jokester. An occasionally amusing cynic at best.
But I'm a fairly good listener. Though I have only a limited amount of common empathy...always trying to solve everything with logic and rational thought. I can't offer much pointless consolation just for it's own sake. No mere shoulder to cry on. Call me a 'moral advisor'...when somebody needs a secondary opinion on something, they'll get it from me. Not that anybody needs that specific 'talent' of mine very often.

But I wouldn't give it up for anything else.
I'd rather be alone most of the time - meeting up with my good friends once in a while. Having fun and serious times both.
Better than constantly being among a whole bunch of shallow folks who are just in it for cheap amusement. Gives me just a false sense of belonging.

It always come done to this for me: Alone by myself or lonely among others.

Nicolelt said:

It's a two-way street though, you have to listen to them as well.

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Oh, certainly, Nicolelt. Listening to my friends is part of that deep connection I crave.

Nicolelt said:

I have 438 friends on Facebook, and I actually have thought about deleted my account, because who the hell on there cares if I am having a bad day and I post it?

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Yes. I've felt similarly, but I have enough people who respond to me that it makes deleting it troubling to me. I hate it that I feel angst about quitting a stupid online social network, but that's the state of things at the moment.

Zett said:

I don't think it's all that bad to have friends who you aren't close to though, that status can change depending on how your paths collide. Unless you're trying to force topics that they are simply not interested in.

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Maybe the key is to not gain superficial friends, but to try to have more meaningful conversations with those peripheral friends. Maybe I won't get the deeper connections I want, but I might be able to be a better friend if I simply contact more people. It's a thought.

Rodent said:

But I'm a fairly good listener. Though I have only a limited amount of common empathy...always trying to solve everything with logic and rational thought. I can't offer much pointless consolation just for it's own sake. No mere shoulder to cry on.

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I can relate. Logic was always my go-to response until I realized that I needed to develop an emotional corp, and I'm not uncomfortable with being that shoulder to cry on. If makes me feel like they trust me with their emotions.

It's up to you of course. But for me, personally I feel superficial friends are a waste of time. I could take that same time and effort I spend on someone I know is probably never going to matter to me and vice versa, and spend that same time and effort on someone who does matter to me, who I also matter to.

I have a Facebook, but I try to keep the number of Friends I have at a reasonable level. One, you just can't keep up with hundreds, or even thousands, of friends. There's just not enough time and you can't keep up with that much information. And two, in order to be Friends with someone, I like to think that I am actually friends with them. Hanging out once or saying all of two words to each other in high school or college is not enough, I like to keep my friends list strictly for people that I actually have had conversations with at some real level of substance, spent a significant amount of time with, see myself talking to in the future, or if I just find you interesting in some way.

I do, however, accept almost any request I get unless I think the person is a jerk or otherwise of low character (this guy that used to antagonize me actually Requested me...yea....I didn't accept), but I only send out a few requests here and there. So if I've requested you, you must be doing something right!

I think both superficial friends and close friends are fine, but I personally prefer having one or two close friends over having 20 superficial friends.
But you I think you can always try to let a supercifial one develope into a deeper connection.

Just don't do like I did last year, and put all the time into improving the superficial social life so that one day you find yourself without any true friends, most of us have limited time to socialize and that time should be devoted to those relationships that count.

I do not see the point of superficial friends at all. What exactly do they do for your life? Indeed what exactly are they? For me I can't see that they are anything. I can go do almost anything alone. That doesn't scare me. I don't mind traveling alone, going to the movies alone, etc. So superficial friends add nothing to my life, and worse, they may demand of me. I may give them things... my time, money etc.

It isn't elitist to demand a lot of people. You deserve to have the friends you want just as much as anyone does. If superficial friends aren't your thing... you shouldn't feel bad about it. If you aren't into blonde women you aren't a brunette elitist.

I have exactly 40 friends on facebook. I was once told that I should just friend people who I barely know... and some of them I don't know too well, but darn it... that is what I want. Life is too short for anything else.

It's OK if you don't want to waste time with certain types. I hate it when you see someone in the street that you sort of know but don't know whether or not you should say hi to them or do the awkward stop and chat.

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To have close friends, you must start out with superficial friendships. As you get to know people and they get to know you, then close friendships can develop. It's not something that you can just go to the supermarket and pick up like a carton of milk when you feel like it.
Most people have only a handful of close friends, if any, during their lifetime. In kindergarten I sat next to a girl whose last name started with the same letter as mine because we were arranged alphabetically. We turned out to have similar personalities and became friends. That was 1976. We're still friends - because we like and care about each other.


-Teresa

I think it's pretty universal that people would rather have few true friends than a lot of superficial or fake friends... I personally don't have time for fake people...

SofiasMami said:

To have close friends, you must start out with superficial friendships. As you get to know people and they get to know you, then close friendships can develop. It's not something that you can just go to the supermarket and pick up like a carton of milk when you feel like it.
Most people have only a handful of close friends, if any, during their lifetime. In kindergarten I sat next to a girl whose last name started with the same letter as mine because we were arranged alphabetically. We turned out to have similar personalities and became friends. That was 1976. We're still friends - because we like and care about each other.


-Teresa

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I'd have to agree. People's suffering, venting, and emotions are a heavy burden to bear when you don't know them very well and they haven't been a part of your life for very long. Those things take energy and can bog someone down if there's too much, and for many there's no reason to spend that energy on someone you're not sure is going to be worth your vulnerability.

I reserve most emoting and deeply personal feelings for friendships that are already solid, so I'm probably one of those who gets tossed aside when I don't want to break down with someone I barely know after a long day at work, worrying about my father's cancer, etc. I'd rather have people I can have fun with (even if it's just going to the movies and discussing the film), and once we trust each other more or really need it we can turn to each other with our feelings.

Emotions are precious, especially the deeply personal and secret ones. They're not tokens to be handed out as a show of goodwill or swapped like trading cards. I could never be close to someone who didn't understand that about me. When I'm hurt and confused, I talk to the people I know well. Not the ones I'm just getting to know.

I'm not going to knock superficial friendships, because sometimes you just want to enjoy an activity together without talking about your problems or listening to other people's lives. It's important to have close friendships -- but those are few and rare and you can't always share everything with your best friend if for example, they live far away.

I don't think it's a problem not to have superficial friendships if you can enjoy activities on your own or with acquaintances. It's always frustrating when you want a superficial friendship to become deeper and it doesn't seem to work, but trust can take years to develop and you'll just have to decide whether you want the risk or not.

sk66rc said:

I think it's pretty universal that people would rather have few true friends than a lot of superficial or fake friends... I personally don't have time for fake people...

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I always wonder what the "fake" people look for in their own friendships and why.....

FreedomFromLiberty said:

I always wonder what the "fake" people look for in their own friendships and why.....

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I can answer that, partially. A woman who I once worked with would badger me to go to our company cafe in the mornings. After denying her a few times, I finally said yes, and went with her to get food. (It may be important to note that she's from Croatia, so she is used to men being very blunt and aggressive with her. I had no interest in her beyond vague fascination.)

During these daily walks to the cafe, I learned a couple of things about her.

1) She didn't want to have "personal talk." Everything we discussed on these short trips to the cafe was either work-related or gossipy. If we strayed into a personal topic, she'd shut it down like it was an insult to her.
2) She categorized me publicly as her "Breakfast buddy." I learned that she also had a "Smoking buddy," a "Lunch Buddy," an "Afternoon Break Buddy," etc. So, she was essentially filling holes in her daily life with bodies. Why? Who knows?

I had never met such a superficial woman in my life. I knew her on and off for 5+ years, going to parties with her, celebrating her birthdays, etc, and I know less about her than I know some of YOU. She would never talk about herself, she would always gossip about other coworkers, and no one liked her. Fortunately, she quit and moved out of state.

This, in my mind, is one example of a superficial friend.

I can only speculate about the reasons why she kept everything superficial. Maybe it scared her to open up to anyone, and so her solution was to be super-friendly to everyone and yet open up to no one. It only seemed to work with guys, though, because she was our office's "Croatian Paris Hilton." I guess some guys like them dumb as a tree branch.

(My condolences to any smart Croatians or tree branches I have offended, as I think you are far better than to be compared with my coworker or to Paris Hilton.)

I think my personal view on this is...it depends. I think it all depends on one's needs in life. Some people can live a contented, full life with one or two close friends whilst other may need superficial relationships for networking/work purposes.

At the shelter I volunteer for, almost everyone is a superficial friend but I don't mind that because we are all there to help the animals. Some of these superficial friends, as Sofiasmami said previously, can turn out to be good friends...and they have. Eventhough we started off talking about meaningless things we have bonded since.

I also know a few other people with whom I only have a networking relationship. We get coffee occasionally and talk about nothing in parricular, but we help each other out when one of us needs a job

And then there are some people who I just avoid because they are just too superficial and gossip too much (like your colleague Case) and if they really make me feel awful I just don't bother.

I find that being this way has improved the way I feel about people. I feel less lonely

I've got one good friend. I wouldn't trade her for anything. She gets me and I value that.

FreedomFromLiberty said:

sk66rc said:

I think it's pretty universal that people would rather have few true friends than a lot of superficial or fake friends... I personally don't have time for fake people...

Click to expand...

I always wonder what the "fake" people look for in their own friendships and why.....

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I guess just about everybody have their own agenda, or reason, behind their actions... Some fake people are looking to advance their own life, weather in work or financial reasons in general... You'll see those types of people only hanging out with "people of interest" or "people of influence" in work place like managers & few key people at work... Sometimes I find them "friending" people of "lower" positions at work just to boss them around... Some fake people keep people around just to hit them up only when they need something... Other fake people might have a very low self-esteem... Having low self-esteem in itself is not the worst thing in the word but for some odd reason, few of them turn... They'll try to use people to bring themselves to feel better about themselves... I guess there are a lot of reasons why "fake" people will make "fake" friends...

I'm 45 and drove myself crazy with that same problem for years. In the end, having the "coveted" so-called long "friend" list (in person, not online) was not worth it.

When I was about 40 I just started to accept the fact that I'm not made for those friendships. They wear me out. I'm much happier now just having a few close friends - ones who are like me I suppose - and we really have nice conversations. I sleep better too not worrying about superficial problems that are not even mine! Lol. I get sucked in to other people's problems and dram very easy, and I would rather spend my energy doing something for someone that is worthwhile, not just because they are a drama queen/king.

Works for me. Good luck!