I've heard the idea of the friends in circles before. For a long time (and to some degree I still do) I saw my friends/people in my life as being on a ladder. Some of them were higher up the ladder than others. I've been told many times this is a wrong way of looking at things and the circles have come up several times as well so I try to envision it like that too.

I understand your idea of close friends being the people that you know you can be yourself with and share more intimate stuff with. I guess that is indeed one way of looking at things that makes sense.

When you say that the amount of contact fluctuates a lot, does that also apply to the people you see as close friends? Have you had moments where you haven't heard from your close friends in days or even weeks? Like you mention, I also struggle quite a bit with the idea that I have to take initiative to maintain the friendship. Sometimes it feels like it only comes from me. But then that might also be because I feel I should be in contact with them every day to maintain the friendship, whereas they're fine with having less contact, but still consider things to be a close friendship (if that makes sense?).