Wait But Why’s post “10 Types of Odd Friendships You’re Probably Part Of” begins by describing tiers of friendship using a mountain as a visual metaphor. Tier 1 friends, at the mountaintop, are your closest friends. They’re like your sisters and brothers, they’re the first ones you’ll call when something big happens, they know your proudest joys and your deepest fears, they’ll always be there for you. Tier 2 friends, mid-mountain, are pretty good friends. They know a fair deal about you, of course you’ll see them when you’re in town, but you’ve never really exposed your vulnerabilities to them. Tier 3 friends, around the base of the mountain, are sort of like acquaintances. You know the fact of their existence and your friendship with them, or at least you’ll be reminded thereof by Facebook, but you don’t really make any concerted effort to keep up with them.

One thesis of the post is that the stakes rise dramatically as you move friends up the mountain. A good Tier 1 friend isn’t just twice as valuable as a good Tier 2 friend; she’s like ten times as valuable. The same with Tier 2 and Tier 3. So if you want to live a most fulfilling life, think about your hodgepodge of friends and who really deserves to be up in Tier 1, who’s probably worth keeping around in Tier 2, and who ought to be silently demoted down the friendship mountain. Then spend ten times the amount of time with your Tier 1 friends, and don’t waste too much time bothering with Tier 3 and below.

There are probably a lot of articles out there which make some watered-down version of this point. You’ve only got so many days to live! Which is more rewarding, spreading your time thin among a hundred people who only sorta kinda know you, or spending the same time with your three besties?

I wonder how many people sit down periodically to conduct cullings of their friend-lists, the same way you remove the weeds from your driveway or throw out junk during spring cleaning, the tarnished trinkets judged insufficiently sentimental sitting on the sidewalk. Let’s see who we’ve got here. Arashi Lee? Haven’t thought about him in ages. Hard pass. Dina Porter? Moved out to NYC years ago and never bothered to keep up. Nah. Bushrang Prambikorn? Still around, when did we last hang out? Bump him down a notch. Grace Hellman? I don’t even remember what she looks like. Buh-bye!

I also worry about asymmetric tier placement—maybe I think Rebecca’s on my mid-Tier 2, but she thinks of me as upper-Tier 3 at highest. “Wait, you thought we were that close? I’m sorry Lauren, but it was never that way.”

And I worry that the reason I haven’t heard from some of my middle-to-upper-tier friends is that they came across one of these articles, thought, Hmm, my life is finite and I need to spend my time in the best way I can, and that starts with cutting out the fake friends who don’t matter and prioritising the real friends who do, and silently decided our friendship wasn’t worth renewing.