Don’t make false promises. If you bump into someone you used to be close to, say how nice it was to catch up but don’t suggest meeting up again out of politeness unless you mean it.
Accept that some people see you as an acquaintance when you’d like to be a friend. Unrequited friendship is painful but it’s not you, it’s them. Often it’s simply a limitation of free time. And, ultimately, you only deserve people in your life who make you feel loved, secure and cherished.
‘Friendship between women is different than friendship between men. We talk about different things. We delve deep. We go under, even if we haven’t seen each other for years. There are hormones that are released from women to other women that are healthy and do away with the stress hormones… It’s my women friends that keep starch in my spine and, without them, I don’t know where I would be. We have to just hang together and help each other.’
Jane Fonda
4
The friendship circle
So, you’ve got your friends, gathered up over the years from a variety of places, but where do they all sit in your friendship circle? Your friendship circle can be impacted on by your lifestyle – a partner, children and other family members’ needs can leave you with precious little time for friends. If you have a jug of time and people you care about holding out glasses waiting for you to fill them up, there’s only so far your friendship supply is going to go. You choose wisely who to top up before refilling your jug and starting again the next day.
When I delved into the world of friends, anthropologist Robin Dunbar from the University of Oxford seemed to be the most quoted expert on relationships, inclusive of friendships. In 1993, Professor Dunbar claimed that we can only maintain up to 150 significant relationships at the same time. He states these 150 people are the number of people you know and keep in contact with. It doesn’t include people you’ve been friends with in the past but no longer have a social relationship with, or people you know but have no particular relationship with.
So, according to science, that’s your limit: 150 people you may develop valued relationships with at any one time – but the depth of the friendship depends on which circle they are in. Many of them will be casual friends, the people you might invite to a big celebration like a wedding or milestone birthday. To be fair, you might even have more than 150 people in your life if you’re particularly social!
The importance of the relationship increases as the number of people and size of circles decreases to the core people in your life, right at the centre. It’s up to us who goes where. The outer circle is old school friends, people you once worked with, distant relations and friends of friends – people you’d want to get to speak to if you saw them. They might be on your Christmas card list but you don’t confide in them or rely on them for your emotional well-being.
The next group of friends are the ones you’re delighted to see at an event; you keep in touch at Christmas and maybe speak or get together a few times a year. There can be between thirty-five and fifty people in this circle. You see them as often as you can but you’ve no doubt uttered, ‘We really must see each other more often’ and then never do. You think of them as a good friend but they are yet to – and may never – become close.
According to Professor Dunbar, there are about fifteen people in the next circle – the friends you see once a month or so, known as the ‘sympathy circle’. You’re close friends, you can confide in them about most things, enjoy their company and can rely on them for support. You’d miss them if they weren’t in your life and you make an effort to see them regularly.
Your smallest circle includes the friends you choose to see – or have some contact with – every week and are those you would turn to in a crisis. You invest more of your social time with these people than anyone else. These are your best friends and often include a family member or two, but there’s a limit to how many close friends you can have in your inner clique at one time. According to one study, the average person manages just five close relationships at a time.
In 2007, Professor Dunbar and his colleagues analyzed phone records of 27,000 people in Europe and found that most people repeatedly interacted with the same four or five people in their phonebook. Professor Dunbar says these close relationships are limited in number because we are only able to fully invest and build connections with up to five people. If you’re in a committed relationship, that person takes two places in your inner circle, leaving you with just the three close friends alongside your partner (more on this in Chapter 10!).
When it comes to the 150 people in your life, I believe it’s pretty fluid. Different friendships fulfil different purposes and meet different needs. I know I have a handful of people I could turn to in a crisis but don’t often speak to, let alone see every week! I also think I have a lot more than fifteen people in my ‘sympathy’ circle and fewer in my outer circle. You’re either in or you’re out!
According to Professor Dunbar, these numbers and proportions remain remarkably stable over time because membership moves between the circles. If a close friendship comes to a natural end or
