I have 809 friends on facebook (I know - that's a totally cliche thing to say). But of those 809, there may be about 20 people that I am actually truly friends with. And of those 20, there may be about 10 that I actually truly talk to often. And of those 10, there may be about 5 that are actually truly close friends. Some of you may object to this statement because I always say, "my best friend from ____" or "my best friend from ____." But really, in my day-to-day life, I don't have many friends at all. Just a few people that I actually share life with. Of course there are those that I talk to once a year and can just dive right back in like no time has passed. But in reality, my numbers are very low. And as I get older, the numbers just get lower.... I guess that is just how life goes. All this is okay with me though because the friends that I have are some of the most amazing people I know. Right now I'm in California visiting my old lifestyle. I don't have many friends here either. I have a lot of acquaintances - A LOT. In a place where 'me me me' is the mentality and there's no time for anybody or anything, I still have a select few here who - at the drop of a hat - will go out of their way for me. And I am feeling so blessed. Especially as I sit here in Hermosa Beach at my friend Graeme's apartment waiting for my friend Eileen to arrive so we can go spend the day on the beach. And as I think about the past few days and how I flooded Graeme's garage when I used his broken washing machine and he graciously brushed it off like it was no thing. We just dried it up and went for beer and sushi. And then I think about the fact that Eileen rescheduled her life this weekend just to be with me. So I just want to give a shout out to the amazing friends that I do have - including those not here with me in California. Yall are truly amazing. You teach me how I can be a better person and a better friend.
I'm off to the beach :)
December 19, 2009
My friends.
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I just read a book called Connected (http://connectedthebook.com/) that studied Facebook friends and found that the number of friendship pairs where two friends interacted regularly ("true friends") was 6, on average. Its no coincidence that in past polls of people off-line from Facebook, the average number of friends a person could maintain was 6. It's something about our human nature, our capacity, and the time we have to manage the relationships we value.
ReplyDeleteThe authors also introduce a theory of "Three Degrees of Influence," meaning that the actions of people 3 positions removed from us in our friend social networks can influence our behavior, but the effect significantly diminishes after 3 degrees of separation. So the people you surround yourself with as well as the people those people surround themselves with affect your attitudes, health, and wellbeing.