Friends and contacts: what is the difference?

[ozzy47]

A friendship is a mutual, two-way relationship between two users. It is initiated by one user and accepted by the other.

A contact is a one-way friendship. This could be where the other person does not accept the friendship, a friendship request is pending, or you do not wish to be friends at this time but want to show them as a contact only.

Contacts are people on your friends list
Friends are people who are both on your friends list, and their own.

So if I have Lynne on my friends list, but she doesn't have me on hers, she is my contact.
If I have Paul M on my friends list, and he also has me on his, we're friends.

What all this does is work with Profile Privacy, which allows users to set things to either:
Everyone, Registered Users, Contacts, Friends.