Week 13 – 20th August
We Collected Friends Like Trophies
I recently came across Dunbar’s Number Theory, which suggests that we can meaningfully maintain around five loved ones, fifteen close friends, fifty friends and roughly one hundred and fifty social relationships.
Whether the numbers are scientifically perfect or not, they reminded me of something else.
When we were younger, we judged ourselves by how many friends we had.
The more people who turned up to our birthday party, the more popular we felt. The more contacts we had on BBM, the cooler we thought we were. Somewhere along the way, friendship quietly became a numbers game and we unknowingly started treating popularity as proof that we were liked.
Looking back, I don’t think I was trying to build meaningful friendships.
I was collecting people.
Then Life Starts Auditing Your Circle
Growing older has a funny way of changing the questions we ask ourselves.
Instead of asking, “How many friends do I have?” we slowly begin asking, “Who actually adds value to my life?”
Some friendships deepen. Others simply become like the decorative vase sitting in the corner of your living room. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because you’ve forgotten it’s even there. You never put flowers in it, yet for some reason, you still keep dusting around it.
People also slowly show you who they are. Some choose you despite your flaws. Others only choose you when it’s convenient or when you fit into whatever agenda they happen to have at the time. The older you get, the easier it becomes to tell the difference.
Not every friendship ends dramatically.
Many simply stop growing.
Access Is Not Friendship
The realisation that surprised me most came while staring at my own Instagram account.
I have around 2,500 followers on a private profile. Then it struck me that most of those people haven’t spoken to me in years. Some haven’t wished me on my birthday in over a decade. They probably have no idea about the biggest joys or hardest moments of my life.
Yet they still have access to it.
They know where I holiday, what I eat and the snippets of life I choose to share, despite no longer being part of that life.
That was the moment I realised followers, contacts and friendships are three very different things.
Fewer Friends, Better Friendships
Perhaps that’s why our social circles naturally become smaller as we grow older. It’s rarely because we’ve become antisocial. If anything, we’ve become far more intentional. Time becomes more valuable, our mental wellbeing becomes more important and we stop confusing access with friendship.
Twenty-year-old me genuinely believed that having more friends meant more people liked me. I spent so much time making an effort for people who probably wouldn’t have done the same for me because I was constantly trying to keep up with the version of life I thought I was supposed to have. Looking back, it was exhausting.
Today, I’d rather have a handful of people who know the unfiltered version of my life than thousands who only know the version I choose to post online. Dunbar may believe we can maintain one hundred and fifty meaningful relationships. Personally, I’d struggle to name even twenty people I’d instinctively call if life fell apart tomorrow, and strangely, that thought doesn’t make me feel lonely. It makes me feel secure.
Perhaps growing older doesn’t teach us how to make fewer friends. It simply teaches us that the people who truly matter were never meant to be a crowd.
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