the friendship accounting classification system.

for ari, a definite cash flow friend.

a few days ago, an old buddy of mine wrote me one a those long time/no speak/just saying hi emails. i was glad to hear from him. i last spoke to him around a year ago; he had just gotten hitched.

after giving him a brief synposis of the current state of my union, i wrote back my classic how-r-ya catch-all for these kinds of people: how's married life?

he wrote back: Funny you should ask. I'm separated and living alone in the village pending a divorce. Seems married life wasn't exactly the right choice for me. More like [redacted] wasn't the right girl and it took me about 12 months too long to figure that out. Other than that all is good. I live right by [redacted] so we should meet up sometime soon and catch up.

so i wrote back: TMI!

jk. i wrote back that i was sorry to hear that, etc. and we should def grab a drink soon. and i hope we do.

nonetheless, this precipitous divorce update led me to come up with the friendship accounting classification system, which shall serve as a handy way for people to describe their level of closeness with friends. it is derived from financial statements.

i dont know much about finance (ok, i prolly know more than the average person, but i just like saying 'i dont know much about' something before i prove that i do, b.c i like sam cooke. and im obnoxious.), but i know that in financial accounting, there are four main statements which capture an entity's financial activities and condition: the balance sheet, the income statement, the statement of retained earnings and the cash flow statement.

im sure we could use the two in between, but for now im only gonna say that most friends are either cash flow friends or balance sheet friends.

see, the thing with the balance sheet is that while it provides a fairly comprehensive portrait of a company's financial condition (assets, liabilities, equity, cash on hand, etc.), the portrait would more accurately be called a snapshot. it's that firm's position at that particular point in time. it says nothing, or relatively little, of how said company makes its money, spends its money, etc. it's kind of like doing a wallet audit on someone, as opposed to following them around work for a couple of weeks (including the day they get paid).

the friend i mention above is a balance sheet friend. we care about each other's overall positions in life, but we dont need to keep up with each other on a week-to-week or even month-to-month basis.

the cash flow statement is different in that it shows not only how much revenue a company is taking in, but more importantly in this case, how said company is making its dough. for instance, it will show receipts from customers, then how much of that total is paid to employees and to the rent, then how what's left over is apportioned, etc. from this you can extrapolate a firm's revenue cycle and whatnot. in other words, the cash flow statement gives much more of a week-to-week type of assessment of the entity's condition than the balance sheet.

needless to say, your closer friends are, thusly, cash flow friends. if my relationship with my newly-single friend had been of the cash flow variety, i would have observed that he wasnt getting along with the wif, then perhaps he would have confided in me that he was worried about his marriage, then this would have gone on for twelve months too long, and then he would have told me he was getting divorced.

so next time you bring up an old friend with a new friend, and the newbie asks you to describe your relationship, you might do well to start by saying, 'well, shes a cash flow friend.' or 'well, this person's kind of a balance sheet friend.'

after you first designate them as being .diced, .chotch, or .classy, of course.

also needless to say, family members, colleagues and lovers have places up in this mix, but thats for another time.