An acquaintance is just a friend who hasn’t been leveled up enough yet.
To me a friend is just an acquaintance who’s built up enough experience with you to actually understand what makes you tick AND you to them.
If you find you have tons of acquaintances but few friends it’s for one of two reasons:
Either because A. They don’t want to be leveled up and they avoid you with the solution being ignore them and find those with better taste.
Or B. If you want their friendship, you simply haven’t invested enough time & vulnerability with them.
I’ve found out how long it takes to form a friendship on accident one year when I oriented a nursing student on my unit in the hospital in their final semester for 184 hours.
She invited me to her wedding after and we’ve hung out regularly for years now.
During the time I spent supervising them I shared a lot about my life, my family, my girl, and struggles and I asked about theirs as well.
Then an acquaintance graduated into a friend.
Acquaintances evolve at ~200 hours, if you want more friends invest more time with those people.