Familiar Strangers

A familiar stranger can be described as a person who's face you recognize. Not necessarily a friend but someone who may know where you work since you eat lunch at the lobby cafe. Maybe someone that is a member of a social club or network. A friend is less broadly defined. A friend is someone you have drinks with or meet up with at the club or that you go shopping with on a regular basis and have conversation. A friend is someone who has interacted with you, or who knows your parents or reads your blog—someone with whom you have a history. If you have made a promise to someone and then kept it, you’re a friend. If you have changed someone for the better, you’re a friend as well.

Thanks to social networks and the amplification of stories online, we have far more familiar strangers/friends per person. Nurturing your friends—protecting them and watching out for them—is an obligation, and it builds an asset at the same time.
I want to distinguish friends from 'familiars'; familiars are the people you have a digital link to, but no real connection. They are people you may have come in contact with, such as the person who you see at lunch or the person who hands you your coffee in the morning on your way to work, however do not interact with regularly. You acknowledge them with a thumbnail of their face on your screen. They're not friends in the sense described above though they're not enemies either. And, while we're at it, the moment you treat a friend like a stranger they're not a friend any more, are they?

Learning is not wisdom
you can learn to pick a lock
or steal a neighbors car,
it would be wise to do neither