RULE TO BREAK

“Friends are for life”

Apparently we can all manage to maintain a relationship with around 150 friends. It’s called Dunbar’s Number, after the scientist who identified it. Actually, it’s not an exact number, and could lie anywhere between 100 and 230, but that doesn’t matter. The point is that it’s finite. We’re talking here about proper friends, people you can have a meaningful relationship with, who you can interact with. We’re not talking about the number of people who might be following you on Twitter or Facebook, or who you’d nod at if you passed them in the street.

As you go through life, you meet new people. Some of them you like more than others. A few of them become friends. After the next job or holiday or social event you might add someone else, and someone else. Pretty soon, you’re going to find you’ve already got 150 friends. So what happens when you add more?

I’ll tell you what happens. People drop off the bottom of the list. It’s not a conscious thing. You don’t come home from a party thinking, ‘I really liked that chap I met. We swapped numbers and I’d like to keep in touch. Hmmm – who shall I drop from my friends list to make room?’ No, you don’t even notice it happening. But every so often you find yourself thinking that you haven’t seen someone for a while, or that you really must make the effort to call so-and-so.

This is natural, and the way things are. You don’t have to feel guilty about it. Yes, if you haven’t phoned your best mate who’s going through a dreadful time you probably should hurry up and call them. But if you haven’t been in touch with some friend you used to work with who moved away, well, they haven’t been in touch with you either, and maybe your time together has been and gone. And that’s OK.

People move in and out of each other’s lives, and that’s the way it is. The more everyone moves around, the more fluid friendship groups can become. In traditional communities, 150 people might be your village, and you might never move away. But in the modern world this is less and less the case, and you will lose touch with some friends. You’ll make sure you keep in contact with the ones who matter most to you, and sometimes people magically and wonderfully come back into your life after years apart. Sometimes you lose all trace of someone, or you keep track of them through someone else but the real friendship fades.

This sounds sad, but the reason for it is that new people are becoming important to you, and giving you the support, fun and company that you need. And the same thing is happening for the people dropping quietly off the bottom of your list. So it’s OK. In fact it’s a good thing. There are always new friends waiting up ahead. So work to keep the friends that you really want to hang on to, but don’t feel bad when others drift away.