How many friends is the right number?

[gathermore]

How many friends should a person have? 1-3 super close ones? Or maybe having 20 friends whom arent that close, but you can reliably call on favors if needed?

I'm very curious about other people's thoughts, I myself think 2-4 is a good number because I value the loyalty more than the networking capacity.

 

[RisingThumb]

How many friends should a person have? 1-3 super close ones? Or maybe having 20 friends whom arent that close, but you can reliably call on favors if needed?

I'm very curious about other people's thoughts, I myself think 2-4 is a good number because I value the loyalty more than the networking capacity.

• ~5 Close friends(1 lover for physical intimacy, 1 mentor to learn a great deal from. It's worth considering mentoring someone else too).
• 20-150 Fairweather friends(Colleagues, people skilled in trades etc). The goal here is to be able to pay for people to do jobs(not about discounted, but a good job from a trustable person). They can also be a good source of "stuff" and some you can learn from. The idea here is similar to diversification in investments. Diversify in their skills, their interests and there beliefs and values and you can't go wrong. Also diversify in their ages. It may be worthwhile doing some notekeeping if you're an autist or terrible with names and faces, just to keep on top of it all?

As for what to avoid? Generally, avoid people who are high maintenance(breakdowns all the time). I'll also add, that it's harder nowadays to make excellent friends, and it's VERY hard to convince anyone to change anything in their ways(not impossible, but if you consider how hard it is to change yourself...). I would also suggest being careful about associating a lot with people who are very mentally ill and unstable as that can spill over onto you and make you worse.

 

[gathermore]

• ~5 Close friends(1 lover for physical intimacy, 1 mentor to learn a great deal from. It's worth considering mentoring someone else too).
• 20-150 Fairweather friends(Colleagues, people skilled in trades etc). The goal here is to be able to pay for people to do jobs(not about discounted, but a good job from a trustable person). They can also be a good source of "stuff" and some you can learn from. The idea here is similar to diversification in investments. Diversify in their skills, their interests and there beliefs and values and you can't go wrong. Also diversify in their ages. It may be worthwhile doing some notekeeping if you're an autist or terrible with names and faces, just to keep on top of it all?

As for what to avoid? Generally, avoid people who are high maintenance(breakdowns all the time). I'll also add, that it's harder nowadays to make excellent friends, and it's VERY hard to convince anyone to change anything in their ways(not impossible, but if you consider how hard it is to change yourself...). I would also suggest being careful about associating a lot with people who are very mentally ill and unstable as that can spill over onto you and make you worse.

Sage advice

 

[Andy Kaufman]

4

 

[MindControlBoxer]

You'll want a group of 10 to 12 people to hang out on average, of those 3 or 4 which are your main group and the rest are on rotation, then maybe 20 or 30 people that you hang out every once in a while and rotate in and out of the average hangout session. Ideally those 20-30 people are wildly different from each other expanding your horizons and possible activities.

 

[Aral]

I'm of that school of thought that you can't really be close to more than two to three people at the time, and it's hard for me to consider someone a friend in the first place, partly because of how I was raised, but also because I look for quality rather than quantity. I have many acquaintances, for sure. I'm fine at getting myself to be liked by others and generally make a good impression on people. But I have very few that I consider friends and even less that I feel actually close to, who truly know me. To them, I'm unique in the world, and to me, they are. Even the people I used to be close to but don't talk to anymore, they are still unique in my view.

I'm entirely against the concept of "fair weather friends" like Rising Thumb mentioned above, or "expanding my horizons" like Boxerdog. Those people wouldn't be my friends. They'd be my colleagues, some people I "had fun with", but certainly not what I'd consider friends. I hate considering people as a "resource" or a means to an end rather than human beings. That way of thinking feels like treating people as disposable, especially with the "rotation" thing. And man, 20 to 150 people? How the hell do you even manage that? Even 10 to 12 people is unthinkable to me.

I don't want to "expand my horizons", "have fun", or whatever. I take human relationships very seriously, perhaps a little too seriously sometimes, but I have little energy to put in social activities and I'd rather keep it for people who truly matter to me. At every point in time in my life, if I were in a group, I would get close to only one or two people inside the friend group and be rather "neutral" with the others. I'm also not against befriending mentally ill people if you can keep healthy boundaries. They deserve love too.

 

[zalaz alaza]

I have always found Dunbar's number a pretty effective means of understanding relationships and meta relationships.

Dunbar's number - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Taleisin]

I've never thought of it this way, since I just make friends intuitively. I have maybe 5 or 6 close friends and a gf, and many more people who I enjoy the company of. If any of those people wanted to increase the depth of our friendship I'd reciprocate without thinking about it. I don't think there's an optimum number of close friends you should have, it's more about how many different areas you have to form commonalities with people and how comfortable you are being vulnerable. The optimum number of close friends is however many you need to feel fulfilled for all aspects of your interests and personality.

 

[RisingThumb]

I've never thought of it this way, since I just make friends intuitively. I have maybe 5 or 6 close friends and a gf, and many more people who I enjoy the company of. If any of those people wanted to increase the depth of our friendship I'd reciprocate without thinking about it. I don't think there's an optimum number of close friends you should have, it's more about how many different areas you have to form commonalities with people and how comfortable you are being vulnerable. The optimum number of close friends is however many you need to feel fulfilled for all aspects of your interests and personality.

I agree, the main thing is fulfilment(and my points above was what fulfils my own needs and interests). You can exist with no friends(hermits) or with many friends(The most extreme of socialites), so there's no one optimum number, and even Dunbars number isn't the optimum

 

[MindControlBoxer]

. That way of thinking feels like treating people as disposable, especially with the "rotation" thing. And man, 20 to 150 people? How the hell do you even manage that? Even 10 to 12 people is unthinkable to me.

I don't want to "expand my horizons", "have fun", or whatever. I take human relationships very seriously, perhaps a little too seriously sometimes, but I have little energy to put in social activities and I'd rather keep it for people who truly matter to me. At every point in time in my life, if I were in a group, I would get close to only one or two people inside the friend group and be rather "neutral" with the others. I'm also not against befriending mentally ill people if you can keep healthy boundaries. They deserve love too.

The idea of rotation its for rotating your activities that your other group may not with to partake on. Example:
You like to play warhammer, you also like to idk play basketball, The 3 or 4 people that are in your main group like both warhammer and basketball, Your fat warhammer friends do not wish to play basketball and your jock basketball friends do not wish to play with figurines, but both of you like to play smash and watch anime or whatever else, So you rotate your friends, sometimes you want to play basketball and these jocks will do it, sometimes you'll play warhammer and the fat guys will do it, but your core friend group doesn't change. That goes for every thing you want to do, If you started watching extreme mountain biking videos and wanted to do it, it its unlikely that people on the previous groups would do it. So you just make some extreme mountain bike friends instead. The rotation its how you spend your time rather than the people. The Core group its also cultivated within years, you'll probably start with 0(middle school) and hopefully end up with 4 or 5 when you are older and making real true friends instead of acquaintances its probably out of the picture(middleage).

 

[Aral]

The idea of rotation its for rotating your activities that your other group may not with to partake on. Example:
You like to play warhammer, you also like to idk play basketball, The 3 or 4 people that are in your main group like both warhammer and basketball, Your fat warhammer friends do not wish to play basketball and your jock basketball friends do not wish to play with figurines, but both of you like to play smash and watch anime or whatever else, So you rotate your friends, sometimes you want to play basketball and these jocks will do it, sometimes you'll play warhammer and the fat guys will do it, but your core friend group doesn't change. That goes for every thing you want to do, If you started watching extreme mountain biking videos and wanted to do it, it its unlikely that people on the previous groups would do it. So you just make some extreme mountain bike friends instead. The rotation its how you spend your time rather than the people. The Core group its also cultivated within years, you'll probably start with 0(middle school) and hopefully end up with 4 or 5 when you are older and making real true friends instead of acquaintances its probably out of the picture(middleage).

Well, my hobbies are more solitary also. Drawing, writing, playing an instrument, walking outside, learning languages, cooking. Sometimes watching a movie or two.

TBH I've moved around too much to really have a core group of friends. I'm a military brat, went to about 3 kindergartens, 6 elementary schools, 3 middle schools, and 1 high school, 1 university I dropped out of on the first year, then became a recluse, I just kinda left people behind or was left as I went through life. Once I can settle down I might be able to get some solid, truly long-lasting stuff. My longest-lasting friendships were all online because it didn't matter if I moved houses/cities or not, but in the end they didn't survive me moving to another platform (Discord -> Telegram), or the crumbling of the community, or shit just happened and we didn't talk anymore.

 

[bnuungus]

I like to think about this in 2 categories: friends and groups of friends. Your friends are the close ones that you stay in regular contact with. Your groups of friends are the ones that you have a poker night with or go out to a bar or something. Having your less intimate friends be part of a group helps to naturally categorize them as less intimate friends without stepping on people's toes. Also means you dont have to keep in contact with too many people all the time

 

[bnuungus]

lol wtf is this normie bullshit, just create your own tulpa m8, make your own OC.
oh btw your online "friendship" is not valid, sorry but online friends are not real friends.

>claims it's impossible to become friends with people online
>advocates for gaslighting yourself so fucking hard that you imagine you're two different people

 

[Aral]

lol wtf is this normie bullshit, just create your own tulpa m8, make your own OC.
oh btw your online "friendship" is not valid, sorry but online friends are not real friends.

I could go the same way and say your tulpa is not real and creating one is dumb, if I wanted to.

Are you ever going to not behave like a presumptuous dick on this forum sometime?

 

[Pink Fluffy Cat]

>claims it's impossible to become friends with people online
>advocates for gaslighting yourself so fucking hard that you imagine you're two different people

I could go the same way and say your tulpa is not real and creating one is dumb, if I wanted to.

Are you ever going to not behave like a presumptuous dick on this forum sometime?

sorry, I won't forget to add these in the nest time :
/s /j /uj

 

[Yabba]

Always been a networking guy.

It's easier than ever to become "friends" with someone in the modern age. Just show a shred of empathy, kindness, and compassion, and you will be flocked to.

Will you ever be really close to a group of people, no. Can you call in a million favors at any given time. Yes

That's a good trade for me.

 

[Aral]

sorry, I won't forget to add these in the nest time :
/s /j /uj

it's always a joke or sarcasm when you're called out on your bullshit

 

[Pink Fluffy Cat]

it's always a joke or sarcasm when you're called out on your bullshit

lol calm down, I'm just a random sperg on an obscure corner of the internet who likes to... sperging without ever masking it, no one forces you to take that.

 

[butt3rfly_s0up]

I love my friends so much. The one's i see every day at school and the ones online. I have so much love to give and I couldn't be happier that I'm friends with the best people ever.
What I think people don't realise is just how important friends are.

I believe the 7 friends theory is bullshit. To be real, it doesn't matter how many friends you have you could have a 3 yet they are the most toxic and fake people ever, or you could have ten friends but they are the most genuine, sweet people you've ever met.
To say the the truth that a lot of people don't want to hear, there is no right amount of friends to have. I may be a little harsh here but i think a lot of people try and make it that being friends with a lot of people is bad because most of the time they are fake, because they want to make themselves feel better about having very few friends.

My overall point is that at the end of the day we are all humans, and the individual relationships we have with each other is different for everyone. So you could be extremely lucky (like me) and be surrounded with people who will speak up with constructive criticism when they have an issue, everyone will approach the situation with objectivity and an open mind. The stereotype surrounding big friend groups is that there is often a lot of drama that happens. That's only in groups with toxic, immature people.
I'm in a friend group of 14 people. We had one issue last summer, but it was sorted soon and we are all just as happy as we were before. We approached the situation listening to what everyone had to say, helping each other and the issue in the first place was because we were worried about someone in the group. This is proof that it is possible to be in a very well functioning friend group that is big. We all love each other so much and when anyone has any critique they will immediately bring it up and they will be listened too.
Another thing about having fewer friends is that a lot of people believe that it means you are a lot closer with them. This is true but, you can be super close with any amount of friends you want, it just depends what kind of person you are.
To summarise we are all our own person and it's really just who you end up friends with. There is no perfect amount of friends to have, just as long as your friends are genuine, you know that you can communicate and sort through any issues and that you enjoy being around them, then that's all the friends you need.

 

[butt3rfly_s0up]

I've never thought of it this way, since I just make friends intuitively. I have maybe 5 or 6 close friends and a gf, and many more people who I enjoy the company of. If any of those people wanted to increase the depth of our friendship I'd reciprocate without thinking about it. I don't think there's an optimum number of close friends you should have, it's more about how many different areas you have to form commonalities with people and how comfortable you are being vulnerable. The optimum number of close friends is however many you need to feel fulfilled for all aspects of your interests and personality.

This is the first answer I've seen that i whole heartedly agree with. Everyone should take your advice.