What makes a friend?

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I can't tell the difference between friends, acquaintances, or someone that just goes to the same class as you.

I have been known to ask people if they want to be my friend, but I've been told it's weird for a 23 year old to do that for some reason. It doesn't make sense why we can't just ask people to be friends as adults (obviously "stranger danger" if you're a kid).

Any input would be greatly appreciated

An acquaintance is someone who just talks to you or is friendly to you.

A friend is someone who really cares about you and your life and wishes to spend time with you.

To me...

An acquaintance is someone you see occasionally from the place you know them (work, school, etc), and your conversations are restricted to impersonal topics like the weather, current events, or work/school.

They become a regular friend once you start seeing them in your personal time and you like each other enough to do that. Or to a casual or workplace friend once you're comfortable talking more about your lives and being more honest with each other, even if the friendship won't last outside of work.

I have some trouble gauging when someone would like to move past chit-chat or considers me a friend as well.

Acquaintance is someone who you see on a casual basis where you get along but you don't maintain contact and get to know each other.

A friend is someone who goes beyond the friendly small talk and get to know you. They also appreciate you for who you are and they are also there is during good and bad times.

Someone who is not a friend will:
1. Pick you when you are up and kick you when you are down
2. They will constantly criticize you
3. Show a lack of interest in your life but use you for things that they want
4. Be too busy to get together while making time for others
5. They will not make and break promises
6. Tell you that their friends and family don't approve of you so you aren't invited to this or that.

An aquiantance would be somebody you know from work or school that you like to hang out with. But other than being really tight at work/school you never really spend time outside of that institution/function or rarely ever do anything together on weekends and those kinds of things.

A friend is somebody who is actively and intimately engaged in your life. Intimacy is the key here. Friendships vbary in how close the individuals are. In general most friends are people who like you and are interested in spending time with you. They will either go out of their way to be with you or be perfectly open to any of your offers to spend time with them. A friend is also somebody who accepts you for being the way you are and that you in return must accept. A friend is somebody who respects you because you respect them.

There's a lot of back and forth here but that's because equivocal reciprocation is the key to a solid friendship. What that means is that you should always love and help your friends in the same manner and capacity that they do to you. It shows that you respect each other and view one another as perfect equals which is the ideal friendship.

Also I don't necessarily find it weird to straight up ask people to be friends (if you are being honest and really mean it then nobody has the right to judge you or look down on you for saying that). But that's a very uncommon way to go about doing such a thing. It is much more typical to ask somebody to 'hang out' or 'chill' on a day off or weekend. It shows that you are interested in spending time together and being social which is the crux of friendship.

Basically an acquaintance is someone who you see regularly (e.x at work, church, etc) but don't hang out with 1-on-1.

A friend in the most basic sense is just someone who you spend personal time with or do activities with; the idea that everyone who is "NT" has a "wonderful" set of friends or a hugely thrilling social life isn't really true, a lot of friends, even the so-called "best friends", are often just people who others hang out with because it's convenient but don't have extremely strong bonds or loyalties.

I'd say a close friend is someone who really cares about you and knows you well, and ideally who you share a strong common interest with rather than someone you just "hang out" with.

Having learned through painful experience, a friend is someone with whom I have to hide less of who I really am.

Thanks for all the replies. They were extremely helpful