Your relationship tends to exist mostly as part of a bigger group or through the occasional Facebook like, and it doesn’t even really stress you out when you hear that one of them made $5 million last year. You might grab a one-on-one drink with one of them when you move to their city, but then it surprises neither of you when five years pass and drink #2 is still yet to happen. Towards the bottom of the mountain in the orange zone, you have your Tier 3 friends-your Not Really friends. And if something huge happens in their life, there’s a good chance you’ll hear it first from someone else. If you live in the same city, you might see them every month or two for dinner and have a great time when you do, but if one of you moves, you might not speak for the next year or two. You might be invited to their wedding, but you won’t have any responsibilities once you’re there. Pretty Good friends are a much calmer situation than your brothers and sisters on Tier 1. Tier 1 is high stakes.īelow, in the yellow zone, are your Tier 2 friends-your Pretty Good friends. Unfortunately, depending on how things went down in your youth, Tier 1 can also contain your worst enemies, the people who can ruin your day with one subtle jab that only they could word so brilliantly hurtfully, the people you feel a burning resentment for, or jealousy of, or competition with. These are the people closest to you, those you call first when something important happens, those you love even when they suck, who make speeches at your wedding, whose best and worst sides you know through and through, and whose relationship with you is eternal-even if you go months or years without hanging out, nothing has changed when you find yourself together again. Something like this:Īt the top of your life mountain, in the green zone, you have your Tier 1 friends-those who feel like brothers and sisters. Once student life ends, the people in your life start to shake themselves into more distinct tiers. Maybe they’re the right friends, maybe they’re not really, but you don’t put that much thought into any of it-you’re more of a passive observer. Then in college, you’re in the perfect friend-making environment, one that hits all three ingredients sociologists consider necessary for close friendships to develop: “proximity repeated, unplanned interactions and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other.” More friendships happen. Friends just kind of happen.įor a bunch of years, you’re in a certain life your parents chose for you, and so are other people, and none of you have that much on your plates, so friendships inevitably form. When you’re a kid, or in high school, or in college, you don’t really work too hard on your friend situation. Anyway the point is, A) I was doing listicles before they were cool, and B) A list headline doesn’t mean it can’t be a high-quality article, so C) Wait But Why will make a listicle when it’s the best format for that post, and don’t be mad at us cause it’s not what it looks like. Then, over the last few years, I watched in horror as one of my favorite formats decided to prostitute itself all over the internet as the default format for lazy articles. In fact, my first listicle, 19 Things I Don’t Understand, was published in August of 2005, a year before Buzzfeed was even founded. But here’s the thing-a list is a great format for an article, and a format I was using on my old blog almost 10 years ago. A note about listicles: So we know a lot of people hate listicles and associate them with cheap, low-quality, traffic-driving, link-bait articles.
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