How Many Friends Can a Person Have?

Daily Post, a few weeks ago, posed how many friends a person can have—an interesting debate that I tucked into my file of blog topics.

Last night, I had drinks with one of my newer friends—someone I’ve known since June 2008. Yes, I consider that a new friend! We had not met up in quite some time. So much time had elapsed that I’d written him off, without any ill intent whatsoever. We’re both extremely busy, probably consumed by our relationships, and associate with opposite crowds. Marina vs Tendernob. Upper crust vs lower crust. Louis Vuitton vs Etsy. He’s great, but we don’t have the time to foster our friendship any longer, especially when we’ve got other friends to attend to.

He initiated a get together which is very uncharacteristic among my friends. Notice how I am always the one planning events and telling people to meet up! I wasn’t convinced by his offer as he’s cancelled on me plenty of times. I’ve done the same, so it’s been mutual. Mutually-hectic.

Yesterday at happy hour was the first time I’d seen him in over a year. His fiancé is a doll and I had a really enjoyable time—just the three of us talking.

The bottom line is that this guy is a true friend—regardless of how much time goes by.

As for Daily Post, it’s really not a question of how many friends can a person have, but how many friendships can you maintain? It is very hard. I have an often-referred-to spreadsheet of approximately 50 close friends that I make sure to maintain a good dialogue with.

But what about the thousand friends on Facebook? Are they acquaintances? Do you go up to acquaintances and give them big hugs? Aren’t friends those we can spend quality time catching up with even when you haven’t seen them in years? Well then they are my friends, all thousand of them.