I know better than to try to define “immediate family” because people have very strong feelings about it. 
You can define however you want for purposes of the poll.
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Perfect! 
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My mother used to call me Pollyanna like it was an expletive.
She preferred to be realistic.
Which to me seemed a lot like pessimism.
Point of view is so key . . .
Just think of all those animals and crockery unemployed if not for us. 
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My brother is a pessimist who calls himself a realist. He has scathingly referred to me as “pie in the sky” or as having rose colored glasses. But the reality is that his predictions of doom have a worse track record than my optimistic predictions, so who is actually the realist?!
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I don’t see myself going solo. I think I would immediately try to befriend someone.
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I raised my hand to suggest WDW as the site for my next convention/committee meeting. Now, picture 25 people looking at me like I was crazy. I think we need to hire more Disney fans!
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This sounds awesome. I should give it a try.
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There are 2 kind of friends. Those you travel with and those you don’t.
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Not all of us choose to have a ton of friends. I would rather have a few close people than a ton of superficial acquaintances.
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Same. It’s not that I don’t do things alone. I’d rather shop alone. But going to an amusement park alone just doesn’t appeal to me. I confess that I don’t have a passion for Disney though.
The first part I understand. We can choose if we have a few friends or tons of friends. I have tons of friends, but I don’t consider any of them superficial.
I love people, whether I see them twice a year or twice a week.
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Yes. I was just teasing Jeff bc he sounded so deep. Clearly I have room for make believe and happily ever after.
I do have a friend who just can’t wrap her head around the whole WDW thing. She “feels badly” she’s never taken her kids, but the artificialness of it all just confounds her. On the other hand, her DH took a transfer to the UK for two years so they and their 7 kids could explore Europe extensively. She went to more sites and mountains and villages and castles, etc., etc., than you can shake a stick at. And it looked so exceptionally boring to me. 
I like the piped in music and singing ducks myself.
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So all of your acquaintances know the same things about you as your closer friends? EVERYTHING your closer friends know? Wow. I could never live that way.
100% not how I operate. If I just casually know you, you are an acquaintance and you are not going to be let into my life further unless and until the acquaintanceship has deepened into a friendship.
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I am notoriously optimistic, until I’m not. When i hear someone has a bad diagnosis, I’m the one looking for the chance of recovery, etc. I’ve been hurt many times bc I was overly hopeful about something. But I’d rather live with the rosy glasses.
But when I’m a realist, watch out. Almost every bad thing I was afraid would happen in March 2020 has come true. And we all better hope the remaining concerns don’t transpire. 
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To me, acquaintances are maybe the men at the door of church whom I stop and chat with, or my kids’ coworkers whom I see when I pick my kids up from work. I do ask about their day and they mine. I try to remember details they share and find ways to speak encouragement. If we run into each other at the store we can exchange words. I care about them. I’ll pray about what’s going on in their lives. But they would be more of an acquaintance than a friend.
I have dozens and dozens of friends. Women from my churches, homeschool groups, groups my kids belong to, past forums, my old job. We share our lives together. We totally invest in one another. Maybe all of them don’t know that I had a saphenous vein ablation in 2009, but I could invite any of their families over for dinner right now and talk and laugh for a few hours and get to know them better. I know whose parents are sick, whose husband hates his job, whose kids are struggling. Whether I see them weekly or annually they are my friends.
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Good for you. I live differently. For me to call someone a friend, they have to have earned their way into my life - and the right to stay there. So it’s a small group. When you’ve been burned too many times, you keep it tight.
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That’s sad. I’m sorry you’ve had so much hurt. I just wanted to make the point that we can choose to keep our circle large or small; but just because it is large doesn’t mean the individual relationships are superficial.
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My favorite trips are with my niece. My son is in that teenage phase where he wants to complain and sleep late. Going with him used to be my favorite. But my niece and I have the same touring style and stamina. We like the same rides and she’s so much fun to hang out with now.
With everyone else, I feel like the tour guide and I spend so much time making sure everyone is enjoying themselves, I really don’t get to.
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Did I imply I have “a ton of friends”? Maybe I had at one point… until I decided to travel with them.
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Wait, what? I don’t have my glasses. Am I reading this right 
?
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Kind of like you, I couldn’t split people I interact with into either acquaintances (superficial) or friends (deep).
Most people in my life are somewhere in between. And what about liner friends? Where are they in this spectrum? Ha ha
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