I had lunch today with Jesse Friedman and we got into a conversation about the differences between friends and acquaintances. The discussion highlighted a few particular people in our lives who may have been under the misconception that they’re friends with us.  The reality is that they’re just acquaintances.

And sometimes even that’s a stretch bordering on being a bit too nice for their sake.

Working in technology may warp my perspective here, but I won’t use that to excuse for those I’d consider to be among my former friends.  I firmly believe with all the tools out there like email, instant messages, Twitter, FriendFeed and – god forbid – phone calls… You could at least show an effort.  Like, once a calendar year.

Hat tip to Chris Winfield who just started asking about friends on Twitter and how often you communicate. It created a strange mental transition for me back to this conversation, and thus inspired this post.

Here’s a pretty solid rule of thumb: If I haven’t heard from you in months (or years) don’t pretend we’re friends.  Don’t pretend I owe you anything. Don’t pretend I should actually give a shit about what you say… Because you’ve pretty much branded yourself as an equus asinus.  See above.