Friends, a not so well understood word these days

In the cyber world, we have come to use the word friend in a very general way. In the pre-cyber world, the understanding of the difference between acquaintances and friends was well defined in most peoples minds. Friends like books should be few and well chosen, they are special. Good friends and best friends are fewer still. In life you are lucky if you have more than one best friend and a couple of really good friends. A good friend is the kind you don't have to explain yourself to. They know you well. A best friend, well they know you better than you know yourself sometimes. With a good friend, you talk often or if not often, than at least once in a while and you have a long history perhaps that supersedes the need for getting together often. There are friends, general in variety that you know well, share commonalities, would help each other out without giving it much thought. You may or may not make excuses when it comes to helping them move ! The definition of friend found on the web is "a person you know well and regard with affection and trust". You can see that there is an element to friendship that can only come through time, trust. On the other hand there are such things as acquaintances, most likely those are the majority of your on line friends that you have known for a short time or perhaps have never met in person. The definition of an acquaintance is "a relationship less intimate than friendship ". I have some on line friends I have known for years and somewhere in the space of time, we became friends, there developed a trust between us, but it took years.
It is said of friendship..."Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behaviour between two or more humans. This article focuses on the notion specific to interpersonal relationships. In this sense, the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection". It's a relationship.
American friendships have been declining since 1985. According to a 2006 study "The study states that 25% of Americans have no close confidants, and that the average total number of confidants per person has dropped to 2."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-22-friendship_x.htm
Friendship takes nurturing on both sides. Its not the same as acquaintances at all.
Its not just an American problem, this loss of friendships since the advent of the Internet.
This is an article from ChinaNews

More acquaintances, fewer friends
(Chinanews.cn)
Updated: 2006-09-26 11:14
Nanan has lived in Beijing for 7 years, and she has many acquaintances, but very few friends. Last month, she went to her hometown to hold her wedding ceremony. When she came back, she found that she could not find anybody in Beijing to share the joy with her.
As a matter of fact, with the advancement of communication, it is easy for people to get to know each other; however, people seem to exchange feelings and ideas with each other less and less.
In a survey conducted by Tencent and China Youth Daily, nearly 87.5 percent of all 15,068 responders feel in the same way.
About 45.3 percent say that each of them has less than 5 friends. Another 34.3 percent have more, about 6 to 10 each. In other words, nearly 80 percent of responders have no more than 10 friends. In contrast, about 56 percent of them have more than 50 acquaintances, even more than 100.
Most of responders believe the mobility of the society is the main cause of the loss of friendship, as many people have to move from place to place to make a living. More than half of them think pressure should also be responsible, as it deprives people of chances of communication between each other. One quarter of them blame cyber-friendship, as it actually cuts the exchange of real emotions.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2006-09/26/content_696924.htm
If we understand this new tipping of the scale, more acquaintances vs friendships, we might just enjoy what we do have a bit more and at the same time, it might just push us off the computer and out the door to make some friends.
I really enjoy my cyber acquaintances, but I understand that the relationship is most often different than a friendship.

Two young friends, ready to go for a walk
My mother on the right with two of her friends
My best friend of 46 years. Hardly a day passes that we don't talk to each other