[watwut]

Not really. I kinda feel like the categorization contains group of people you are social with, but does not have actual category for a "real friend". These are all groups of acquittances, people you are polite to who are polite to you back. Mutual interest friends sounds to be activity related acquittances. Once you are not in activity, neither of us cares. Fun friend is person you to go be drunk with or on trip with.

But person I actually trust and can talk about more private issues openly, someone that may be fun or not but I feel deeper non-romantic connection to seems to be missing.

[Jarwain]

Isn't that backstage intimate? The article says that role is typically filled by a partner, but it doesn't Have to be.

[watwut]

By the descript, backstage intimate is too much. I am not talking about people who are almost my romantic partners.

[H8crilA]

There obviously are levels to being intimate. You can be more intimate with someone than with someone else. It also varies with time.

A better way to look at those categories is that they are dominant archetypes (like eigenvectors) that are variably fractionally fulfilled by each relationship. The archetypes are "real" in the sense that they accurately describe/compress reality, much like many datasets can be quite accurately compressed down to some major eigenvectors.

[watwut]

The description still does not really fit what I have in mind.

And backstage intimate is horrible term too. My friends are not intimate nor backstage. Intimate is something else entirely, it does not fit the relationship at all. I talk more openly with them, but I am not intimate in emotional sense with them at all.

The backstage part have similar issues. In what sense are they backstage?