Should You Work With Friends?

By definition, a friend is: someone with whom you share a bond of mutual affection, trust, and support, usually outside of a familial or romantic relationship.

Friendships can be based on shared interests, experiences, values, or simply enjoying each other’s company.

I have three friendship filters/criteria: trust, respect, mutual DELIGHT! That’s my own personal definition. 

What’s YOUR definition? 

Many define friendship differently depending on the proximity they share. Or, if you’re a fan of circles like me… which circle they fall into. 

🟠 The Inner Circle 

Consists of your best and closest friends. The people you trust with thoughts, fears, dreams, and you can be yourself with fully. You’re comfortable being vulnerable and yourself around these people. This circle is most often small and tight-knit. 

🟣 The Middle Circle

These are good friends, work friends, maybe your “business besties”, etc.  

You might spend time together and likely still have meaningful conversations and share mutual support, but there’s a little distance in terms of frequency or depth. This isn’t a bad thing! It’s impossible to have tons of close or best friends, but you might have a lot in this middle circle. You might share resources with these people and collaborate, but chances are your personal lives aren’t deeply intertwined.

⭕️ The Outer Circle (Acquaintances, Loose Ties, Connections)

These are people you might know their name, you may have connected or chatted a few times, connected via social media, and engage from time to time, you may interact with them in business settings, support each other’s work, and professionally refer each other, but you don’t have a personal connection and probably don’t go out of your way to get together beyond business or professional spheres. 

🔵 Situational Friends 

Friends come and go. For a long time, I thought this was a horrible thing and my friends needed to stay my friends forever and ever and ever. But, childhood friends, college roommates, library book club friends, gym friends, neighbors, people you might be connected to either from the past or present activities – they’re often simply situational friends. You’re probably friendly, and in some cases might even get together, but it doesn’t tend to extend past the situation or context you usually see them in. Unless you take some sort of action to deepen that connection, maintain it, or move it up a level.