FRIENDS.
That’s a complicated word.
Facebook friends, old school friends, work colleagues, nodding acquaintances, neighbours, family, fast friends, and best friends – it’s probably different for everyone.
You might rate and categorise your friends, and someone else may do that differently – for example, you might consider someone to be one of your best friends, but they don’t see you in the same way.
Why is this so complex?
I think the key thing is to know about DUNBAR’S NUMBER. His research article is here if you want to read up on it. If you don’t, just know that that in 2016 Robin Dunbar concluded that people only have the capacity to hold 150 relationships at one time. Remember that. And of that, how many can be called friends?
That is important. At least it always has been for me. First of all, I grew up with a very large and expanding family – and their spouses, children, their friends and neighbours and siblings – it all adds up! Next is that while I have always done a lot of different things for a living, the common denominator has always been working in small teams on projects before them moving onto completely different teams for completely different projects.
I have always had a lot of interests, I played in bands, was involved in many clubs and societies too.
Let’s face it, my 150 limit got used up fast – and I simply have never been able to cannot cope with the numbers.
I’ve been Best Man at five weddings to people who considered me their best friend – yet I was NOT on the same page with THAT at all. Life can be so strange.
As a schoolkid, I had lots of little groups of friends, where one group didn’t even know of the existence of the others. The only common denominator was me. I had my musical pals – we’d play guitars in garages and write songs – but these guys wouldn’t get on with my school pals or with the guys at the Air Training Corps doing drills and marching about with guns or parachuting out of planes. Then there was the hippies on dope, the bikers and punks, the chess club and the neighbourhood kids I could play football with too – none met or knew each other because there was very little overlap. I never considered anyone to be my best friend, but there was probably one in each group that I was closest to, so perhaps they thought of me as more of a friend, possibly even a best friend? That’s a snapshot of my early life. And perhaps yours too.
Mark Grenovetter’s paper The Strength of Weak Ties – which is one of the most influential articles in social science, proposes that weak ties—(acquaintanceships that are not reinforced by many mutual friendships)—are extremely important in information flow – an idea that is now core to the field of social networks. In marketing, information science, or politics, weak ties are the principal way of reaching audiences that are inaccessible via strong ties.
By not sticking to, or not having strong ties to, one family or group of people, I was always the one who made connections between groups – I have hooked up lots of romantic couplings, found plumbers and car mechanics for people, and influenced by communicating ideas from one group to another. This is no boast; this is scientifically how networks work. This is how fashions change, how “word of mouth” works – as a weak tie guy, I was a butterfly (as my father called it) flying hither and thither.
I have always had particular tastes, myriad and diverse, true, but still narrowly specific – I dislike spectating sport, for instance, but adore certain operas, ballets, plays, films and novels – naturally this leads to little caches of friends – friends for that one THING – if at all.
Having too many friends and family early in life has probably resulted in my upsetting people; after all, people want attention, to feel loved and respected, and I’ve more than likely not been able to meet their expectations. However no-one can, or should, apologise for being themselves – and I’m certainly not apologising for not living up to anyone’s personal expectations of friendship with me!
And that’s what this article is about. I have shared some thoughts in my posts here over the years, pure weak tie stuff, eh? Someone might click a tag and read a post – and discover a new thing. I’ve done my life’s work then; I have influenced someone and changed their life for the better. (I simply can’t see how any post here would change a life for the worse).
This article, in itself, might be helpful to a reader in coming to terms with the complicated word “Friend”. If you’ve read down this far, you may realise that your friends might be weak tie guys too. They need to be cut some slack; you are not their whole world.
Look now through your friends list, and see if you can spot the weak tie guys, or the ones with big families or many interests, and I bet you might get a different perspective.
Friends, I think, therefore need to take what they can, and give what they can, and not overthink it. The depth, and width of friendships changes constantly, and should do too, and it should be allowed to flow naturally – without restrictions, demands, limits or ultimatums. Enjoy your friends, allow them to enjoy the best side of you too, or the friendship will fade away.
It’s plain nonsense to believe that you “have to work” at relationships, or that you have to “fight for relationships” in the sense these phrases are normally used. Fun takes some effort – you have to dress up and go out. That may be considered work, if you want. You have to listen to a friend, sympathise and encourage – yes, all that could be called work. Giving advice or looking out for someone could be considered fighting for a relationship – so you see, it’s mostly about perspective. If you are actually having to “work” to keep a friend, if you find it a chore, distressing, upsetting or that sort of thing, then I would advise against working at that relationship because it isn’t a friendship at all.
There’s no judgement, aspiration, expectation or censorship in a friend, that’s the good part of it. No-one wants to be told what to do. A light touch is all that’s needed, make a bit of an effort to enjoy yourself, make some time for friends, don’t overthink it, and it will go wherever it may and be great fun and enriching too.
My tip is to try to surround yourself with people you admire. Admiration is under-rated. I actually think it is the basis for love. The best, and longest-lasting relationships are definitely rooted in mutual admiration and respect. Admiration is inspirational. When you admire, nothing about the friendship is work, and the only thing you have to fight for is keeping up.
No-one is perfect, so you always have to overlook or forgive human traits – and that is much easier in those you admire. It’s better to have no friends than toxic ones, or those you have to fight to keep.
So don’t worry about losing friends, you can only cope with 150 – and that is not a lot is it? Pick ’em wisely.
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davedevine 