Actually, I haven’t seen it that way at first, but now — pondering on your arguments — it indeed seems you’re right — Keith Ferrazzi does leave the impression that you should be creating relationships all the time. I think the book contains many gems regardless, but yes, we could probably benefit filtering out parts of it.

Did the book make anyone else uneasy? Would love to hear your opinions!

There is a difference between being ‘friendly’ and being ‘friends’. I think that everyone I deal with through my work would say that I’m a nice, friendly guy. But we aren’t friends. Meaning that we don’t share common interests other than work.

The first story related by the author of “Never Eat Alone” made me uneasy. He talked about how he did such a good job as a golf caddy for a particular woman, that he “became a de facto member of the Poland family, splitting holidays with them and hanging out at their house nearly every day.”

Now, I realize that he was a teenager, and friends with their teenaged son, so this doesn’t translate directly into the adult world.

But is this the kind of relationship I should always endeavor to have with business acquaintances? Isn’t that, well, creepy? Do I need to be this involved with the lives of my coworkers? Really… we just work together!

I think it’s great if you can become friends with people in business. But the main point of “Never Eat Alone” seems to be that you should go out of your way to artificially CREATE these kinds of relationships all the time, rather than simply let them happen on occasion.

And the minute you do that, it becomes something else. That’s why they call it “networking” instead “making friends”.

Maybe other people just have a lower threshold for friendship. I just don’t know.

Does that make sense?

My personal relationships are chosen because I have some personal interest in common with the other person.

My business relationships are chosen for me by my business.

My personal interests and business interests are often not the same, so I would be disingenuous of me to attempt to make personal friends out of most of my business contacts. True, I am friends with some of my coworkers. But they are far an few between, because most of my coworkers don’t have the same sense of humor, or like the movies I watch, or share my politics, or listen to my music, or share my hobbies.