C'mon, fess up. What do you need to improve this year?

Fortunately write more I don't stop backsliding on weight and exercise need to improve catch up on reading on anything write more!!!

And now a modern etiquette quandary:

In German, there are two forms of the pronoun "you": an informal du and a formal Sie. Your friends are du, and an adult might address a child that way, but otherwise most people, even casual friends and neighbors who have known each other for years, are supposed to be Sie to each other. I say "supposed to be" because I think things are much more informal now (though Deborah would be the one to confirm, deny, or shade with nuance all of the above...and this About.com article cites people getting fined for disrespecting a police offer with du). Anyway, back in the day—at least according to my German teacher—Germans would even celebrate a bit when they finally became du to each other.

I write this because I always assumed that Americans really didn't have a similar kind of tradition. But I realized today that I was wrong—as I gave an old acquaintance, now turned relatively new friend since her move to Baltimore, her own folder in my Gmail Inbox.

Similarly, another friend, D., wandered through my catalog. He was friends with my roommate, I., so he went in "I.'s Friends" (I often use certain nexus-point people to group friends). But they were his friends too, so soon the folder was renamed "I. & D.'s Friends." Eventually, D. got his own folder, as was his due.

At what point does someone get their own folder? Do you say to someone, "You've got your own folder now"? What does it mean if I give someone a folder...or don't give someone a folder? Recently for instance, I was surprised to briefly find myself with a girlfriend I hadn't counted on and certainly didn't have the energy or time for, and one of the ways I distanced myself was by pointedly refusing to give her a folder (relegating her to my general "Ephs" file) no matter how much she emailed. Never mind that she will never know she was denied a folder—I know, and that's enough.

Thoughts...?

(Especially from Ed and Brad, whose containment/manipulation of friendships is breathtakingly Machiavellian (in a good way), and Helena, who I'm sure has a rigidly defined system of dizzying specificity...)