Brant, i know what you mean when you talk about friends and acquaintances and how to tell the difference between them. Sometimes it’s hard to keep a perspective on what’s happening outside of yourself – like the disorientation you feel when you play a first-person shooter game from the camera angle that floats behind your own head. Sometimes you need to remove yourself from what you’ve got stewing inside and view your friendships from the outside, because then you realize how good some of your “acquaintances” really are for you. It’s not their fault that you can’t share all of your private life with them, and you need to accept them on the terms of what they do know and love about you rather than what they don’t. I went through a miserable and lonely couple of months last year when i decided that i didn’t have any real friends, until one of my real friends pointed out to me that it’s not her fault that i won’t share anything personal with her.
Of course, if we would share personal things with our friends, would we need the internet anymore :p