Acquaintances, Buddies, Colleagues, Friends, Family, and Cousins
I'm sitting on a plane from St. Louis to Orlando on the way to VSLive/ASPLive. I was thinking about who I'm going to see at the conference. I figure that my buddy Chris Kinsman will be there and possibly acquaintances of mine such as Keith Pleas. Why just acquaintance? I've had the pleasure to email Keith four or five times and I've met him four or five times, but when I see him I still lead with, "Keith! Scott Hanselman, how are you doing?" just in case Keith doesn't remember me, and this way he doesn't have to waste CPU cycles looking my face up. I do the same thing with other acquaintances and "colleagues" like Chris Sells and Don Box and [Insert name here], et. al.. They are colleagues as I see them a few (sometimes several times) a year on campus or at conferences. I say hi, but don't expect them to know my wife's name, since when you're holding all the WS-*.* specs in your head, sometimes you can't remember lots of trivial social details.
So I got to thinking about the difference between "friend" and "colleague/acquaintance." I have some remote friends, Patrick Hynds for example, who I chat with a few times a week and who could TOTALLY crash at our place on a moments notice. We've shared (soft) drinks many times and have stories going back years. But, I've only seen Patrick at conferences and on campus also. Hell, I started to realize that I see Don Box more than I see my uncles (I see them on the 4th of July and at Christmas) and Don remembers my name better than my cousins!
Therefore, I conclude that either:
A. I'm not nearly close enough to my family and need to spend more time with them instead of at conferences
or
2. Patrick, Keith, Don, Clemens, Chris, Chris, Sam and MANY others that I see several times a year are my REAL family and will not be surprised when I show up on their door wondering if I can sleep on their couch.
Anyone else have this problem, or just me?
About Scott
Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
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