I wonder how many people are like me and question the difference from friends and acquaintances? In the movie Tombstone it was clear there were many different types of relationships. Could you pick out the true friends. The caption above is one of my favorite all time movie clips. The man very few trust is there to protect his friend. I wonder if you are lucky enough to have your own Huckleberry?

Do your views of friendship differ from those individuals you would consider friends, do they feel the same way? Or do you have people who consider you a friend and you have never spent time with them and you consider them to be an acquaintance?

Looking at the dictionary the word friend, friendly, friendlessness, friendlier, friendly, friendliest has many meanings. However when comparing friend to an acquaintance, the friend is closer. Acquaintance is defined much simpler as  a state of being acquainted, personal knowledge, a person who knows but is not particularly close (casual friend).

How confusing is this, I have people I consider to be friends due to common thoughts, although I may have never spent time or met them in person. I have people I’ve spent time much time with whom I consider an acquaintance.

Here are a few of my thoughts. I think one factor is trust. Zig used to say if they like you they will talk to you and if they trust you they will do business with you. Build friendships on trust. Now to add to the confusion I may trust you, but you may not be my friend.

An additional thought is if you are my friend, I will stand by you to extreme lengths to protect you. I will also allow you to have limited buffers when we are speaking. What that means is if we are hanging out and you say something offensive, many times friends blow it off, or make an excuse for the comment. We allow our friends more freedoms with speech and activity then we do acquaintances.

Well that is my take, so how many friends do you have? Maybe the most important thought is make sure you are building relationships on trust and integrity.

Thanks for spending a few minutes with me today.