Spending five days in Austin for SXSW Interactive was a mental and physical beating. It wasn’t Iron Man but the networking and party hopping does take its toll on you to the point where I was becoming anti-social on the last day. I made an observation that hasn’t crossed my mind before which is how people introduce or recognize their relationships with others. It’s important to know people, have strong business connections and be “in the know” but how we classify those relationships is very intriguing and maybe we can rethink the word choice on these relationships.
In conversation, when John is talking to Jim and in the middle of John’s story about this new company, he says, “I’m thinking of bringing on x because of their work in x. You know right?” Jim responds back with one of the following lines:
I’ve heard of him/her.
I know of him/her.
Yeah, we’ve met.
Yeah, we’re friends.
Yeah, we’re good friends.
Yeah we worked together at x and it was great.
No I don’t know who that is.
If you attend a few professional networking events, this is exactly how the conversation goes. John didn’t truly care who Jim knew but naturally if John was working with this person, everyone had to know who it is. Now Jim is in the situation of responding on one of the above ways because he has to say something and sometimes lying is the best way to help this conversation come to a end so they can both move on with the rest of John’s story.
I’d like to challenge a couple of things in this method in hopes that a few people can resolve this awkwardness. First of all, very rarely are you “friends” with someone. I hear “Good Friends” used the most out of all of these and I think that’s usually inaccurate. I know a ton of people in my field and I might have 5 people that I would consider friends. I’m very picky about who I consider a friend. For example, there’s a guy in tech who I have great respect for, we travel in the same circles and I can imagine watching football at his place on a Sunday afternoon. However, I don’t think a 3AM phone call when I’m drunk and need a ride is a reality with this guy so therefore we’re not friends.
So that’s the first point. Let’s be more careful with how we label acquaintances. Right now, that’s all it is and reserve friendship status for people that you feel are actual friends.
The second thing I wanted to mention is how I make this situation never happen by never asking the kind of questions that I ask. For example, I’ll tell a story and say, “Yeah I’m working with “John Smith of company XYZ on this new project” and then continue my story. If it’s someone well known, they generally throw in a, “yeah I know that guy” and that’s it. I never forced them into an awkward situation of saying that they know that person or that they’re “good friends” because the person feels challenged. I just proved that I’m better than them or at least equals and they’re now saying, “best friends forever” to make sure they look equal in my eyes. It’s freaking stupid and it is purely mind games between two people.
When you’re explaining your project, don’t force someone to answer that they know a certain person and don’t fall victim to saying how close you are with someone just because you feel entitled to be one of the cool kids. I’ll say it right now. I don’t know nearly enough people and I usually work with people you’ve never heard of before because they’re cheaper, nicer and dedicated partners. I then save you the stress of figuring out if you know someone I’m working with. Everyone is happy and on a nice clean slate. This is how conversations should be.