Strategic Friendships

You know those posts on how to get the attention of A-List bloggers so you can be carried around on their high-clout coattails?

They usually have face-saving titles that pair  friendship or relationship with strategic, tactical, or beneficial. Sounds all serious business, but they read like guides on How to be an Ass-Kissing Suck Up.

Well, this ain’t that kind of post.

I shouldn’t bash them though…there are people with thriving blogs and bountiful bank balances who played that hand well. I’m just on edge because it’s a great social skill to practice and it’s completely unnatural to me.

I’m drawn to people who interest me by what they do, what they say, and how they are. I wince at the idea of befriending people based on what they can do for me, what I can get from them, and how I can use them to get to my next level…like ‘em or not.

And yet.

Being online connects me to millions of people. That means good odds on finding people who naturally interest me who can also help me along. And I have. It also means millions of people are connected to me, and can find me for those same reasons. And they do.

Here are a few scraps of thought on that—

I-I-I-I-I’m not their stepping stone.

By blessing, luck, or fate—definitely not by my design—I have a few friends popular enough to be considered unapproachable. So being a relative nobody, total strangers introduce themselves to me and in the next sentence ask me to introduce them to one of my far-more-popular-and-obviously-more-desirable friends.

Ballsy. Insulting. And ultimately ineffective because I’m their friend, not their receptionist, and they wouldn’t thank me for forwarding a tacit recommendation for someone I didn’t know.

People mistake usefulness for a willingness to be used.

I shouldn’t be surprised by people who value my opinion enough to ask for it, but not enough to pay for it. But I am surprised by it. Every time.

And perhaps it would be flattering just to be asked, but my friends, who could get my time for free, always offer to pay for it. And then do.

‘Nuf said.

For Innies, it helps to know people who know people.

As a card-carrying introvert, I’m easily overwhelmed by large groups of people…even virtual ones.

I have just 4 or 5 close friends and regularly talk to only 10 more, so I treasure the 2 or 3 super-sociable friends who expand my circle a hundredfold with their platoons of acquaintances.

Sometimes where you are isn’t (quite) where you wanna be

I love having friends in the same place along the emotional, spiritual, and business lifecycles. Kindred equals comfort. But comfort can equal complacency and years can go by without much, or any, movement toward my next-level goals.

I’m finding it’s critical to have friends farther along those lifecycles who happily share their stories and offer their advice. Even if they don’t say a word about their work, I learn a lot just by watching them do their thang.

Ass-kissing suck up is (probably) in the eye of the beholder

There are a number of folks I would naturally like a lot who just happen to be high up in the strata of small businesses. The thing is, I worry about looking like just another sycophant and avoid doing what I would naturally do: leave a kind comment, send a howdy through Twitter, or share a quick idea in an email.

The solution to that—I think?—is to do what I would naturally do with no thought to their status. Maybe they’ll see me as a suck up, or maybe I’ll find a new friend. Worth a try either way, eh?

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What are your thoughts on the business of friendship and friendships in business? Lemme know down below…

Photo credit: Juliana Coutinho