Acquaintanceship

Saving Face

The friends around the table, St. Jacut. Edouard Vuillard (1909).

“…after persons have been ‘close’ it is possible for their relationship to decay, stopping only at a point where they are ‘still on talking terms,’ or, after that, (and with a discontinuous leap), at a point when they are ‘not talking,’ in either case conferring on mere engagement practices the power of characterizing the relationship.”

—Behavior in Public Places, Erving Goffman, 1963

Getting the beginning out of the way…

An acquaintance is someone whom we have a right to socially recognize. Whether you two were introduced informally at a party, formally at some business meeting, or formally for the purpose of introducing you two through a mutual friend, the rules of the situation of your meeting will determine whether or not it’s appropriate for you to wave your hand and say hello if you see them passing on the street. You’ll be called to act on that social intuition.

Acquaintanceship does not have to be limited to those whom we briefly meet. What really separates that person you see on occasion, that you consider a friend and likewise in return, from an acquaintance? An immediate rule is that friends may become acquaintances, and of course, vice versa: underlying this change is duration, in which friendship may decay into acquaintanceship and even into nothingness altogether, and secondly, the circumstances of the relationship, both intimate (when two are together) and extrinsic (occurring outside of any encounter between the two—influenced by direct encounters with those who may discuss perceptions of the other, or indirect encounters in which our perception changes for the other; or perhaps it is the morning after and the drugs have worn off).

In encounters created exclusively by a mutual friend, such as in parties, those that you see, as a result of the mutual friend, are merely acquaintances; friendliness or even knowing them “first,” or prior to the party, is not a condition for friendship.

In fact, not even friendship is a condition for friendship, which naturally decays without a mutual prohibition on the possibility. In other words, friendships die without a concerted effort.

It’s for this reason that any situation that involves an acquaintance or decaying friendship (which should be treated with the precariousness of acquaintanceship) should be deliberated and introduced with careful obligation by its creator.

Acquaintanceship sometimes involves what is called “preferential communication,” which implies a relationship in which one has to gain more than the other. One may likely avoid places and occasions in which he may have to deal with a troublesome introduction and subsequently perform to save face, of himself but also the face of the introducer, the mutual friend, he who created the encounter! What a burden this is on the one who stands to lose nothing, but also everything. He must be saved, as well as the other from second-hand embarrassment.

“Since harm of this kind seems to flow from the poor to the affluent, the male to the female, the weak to the powerful, the introducer may feel obliged to check with the one who has the more to lose before effecting the introduction, and assume that the one who has something to gain will have no objection to the relationship.” But, this is partially misguided, as it pertains only to formal meetings, not those in decaying friendships (if not already dead or never alive) kept alive by mutual friends who create encounters.

The mutual must therefore be obliged to explicitly check with both, every time and without presumption—“would you like to be introduced?” The frame of the encounter must be neutral and open to new direction by its participants. Failure to do so should be counted among the greatest sins of social interaction, as bad as forgetting the name of one who should not be forgotten, or worse, not knowing that one ought to know a particular person.