How many friends do you have

On average, people have three to five close, personal relationships. Those of you who worry that you only have a few close friends can relax. You are well within normal. Of course, an average is the midpoint of any group. So some people have more than three, some have fewer. As you move out from the center, each concentric circle has more people but with less meaningful connection. We see them less often than those in the center group but the relationships are warm and reciprocal in some way.

They are the kind of people who seem to be in ongoing conversations with us that are interrupted by long periods of silence. They are the people we recognize when we see them in a crowded mall or say hi to when we bump into them at a concert. If you are at all active in your school or community, you may have more acquaintances than you think you do — probably a number that will bring your total of all the rings to about All of the rings in the circle are important.

Feeling that we are at least recognized by a substantial number of people in our community or school whether the paperboy, the barista at the coffee shop, the cafeteria lady or the school crossing guard, for example is part of what makes us feel at home. Having a few folks in that innermost circle of intimacy is what makes us feel valued and loved. Their problem is the lack of enough people in that first circle. Feeling lonely when the population in the inner circle dips below two or three is normal and appropriate.

That feeling of loneliness is a signal from our inner wise self that we need to do something to reconnect to feel good.

Fortunately, other people need friends too. The trick is finding each other. The key to getting connected is getting active. Sometimes all it takes is making the time to bring people from one of the outer circles inward. Dr Dunbar came to this conclusion through his studies focusing on the evolution of the brain specifically the neocortex in primates, including human beings. After looking at the brain size of humans compared to the neocortical volume coupled with group size, Dunbar discovered the friendship sweet spot.

While might seem like a large number, this is probably the highest number of friendships you can actively cope with, taking into account how much time and energy is needed to tend to each friend. On the other hand, friends might seem small when you consider the friendships you might maintain via social media. But, as Dr Dunbar pointed out, the friends that fall into the number are ones with who you share personal history, not those you merely exchange small talk with.

Although, Dr Dunbar does point to social media as a means to keep friendships going that might have sooner drifted away from you for a myriad of reasons. Yes, I can find out what you had for breakfast from your tweet, but can I really get to know you better? Typically, we have a core group of five very close friends — something Robin refers to as our "support clique". They're our real, ride-or-die, deep, meaningful connections. From there, we tend to have a cluster of 10 close friends who round out our most important support network.

They're people whose deaths would devastate us, whose loyalty we cherish, who we probably like to see on our birthday. After that, we usually have 35 less close, still lovely friends, and then about people in a more tenuous friendship category about 75 per cent of this group are acquaintances and 25 per cent extended family. Any of these circles can include family members — because sometimes they're the friends with whom we happen to share DNA. Our romantic partners get their own bonus category.

They're our most important allies in the pursuit of things like happiness, self-esteem and wellbeing. Research by an academic called Susan Degges-White found that people with three to five close friends report the highest levels of life satisfaction. People who are pleased and comfortable with the number of friends they have, no matter what number that was, also reported high life satisfaction.

The study suggests we benefit from "feeling a sense of belonging within one's social network" and, really, that could be achieved with any number of buddies. The ideal number is three to five, but it's of course possible to have fewer than that or more and be living your best life.

I love all this evolutionary psychology stuff, but I also hesitate to prescribe an exact number of friends for every wildly unique person to have in order to be happy. With a mass noun, a question such as "How much aluminium will we need? The form of the question also tells you the possible responses.

If the question asks "How many" then it must be asking about a countable noun, and if it asks "How much" then it must be asking about a mass noun. Mass nouns can only be measured, so "how much" can lead to a response such as "ten metres", "ten litres", "a handful" or "a spoonful".

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