Someone sent me a “Friend” request on Facebook the other day.
Should I accept it?
According to my Facebook page, I already have 487 friends. I have 126 more who have requested to become my friends.
Do I need more?
Some of these friends are people that I’m close to and see daily or weekly. Some are people I’ve worked with, either in the past or the present. Others are people from my distant past that I haven’t seen in years. I have a close relationship with some, while I’ve connected with some out of curiosity.
Connecting with friends from high school or college usually starts with that curiosity. We know what they were like in school, and wonder how they’ve changed. If we’re honest, we want to know three things:
- Where are they living?
- What are they doing?
- How much different do they look than they did when we were classmates?
They’re doing the same thing with us.
I’ve found that there’s a subtle comparison that takes place, too. When I look at their page, I want to see how many friends they have. If they have less than me, my self-esteem goes up. If they have more, my self-esteem goes down.
How messed up is that?!!
If I had 487 live friends in my real life, I’d never get anything done. It’s hard enough keeping track of the people I do have in my life, giving them the time and attention they deserve.
Technology has made it a lot easier to stay in touch than ever before, which means we feel guilty when we don’t. When a green dot appears next to their name in the “contacts” section, it means they’re online. That means they know when we’re online, too . . . and we wonder if they wonder why we don’t connect.
This probably keeps therapists in business.
Last year, I randomly thought about my old friend, Tobey from elementary school. We used to walk to school together and had the same teachers from 6th through 8th grade. He has an unusual last name, so it was easy to find him online. I reached out to see if it was him, and he graciously responded with a quick update and family photo. I did the same.
That was it. It was a really fun exchange, and we caught up. Maybe we’ll do it again ten years from now. We made the connection, and we both enjoyed it. We don’t need to become BFF’s or go camping together. We just shared a human moment, and it was good.
How Many Friends is Enough?
Back in the 90’s a researcher wanted to find out how many “meaningful relationships” a person could have (defined as, “those people you know well enough to greet them without feeling awkward if you ran into them at an airport lounge”). It’s based on how the human brain typically works.
He found that for most people, it’s around 150.
At birth, it’s one or two.
The number grows quickly in the late teen years.
By their 30’s, most people level out around 150. It stays about the same after that until the 60’s or 70’s when the numbers start to go down. (An ominous thought, but it makes sense.)
He says if you live long enough, the number could go back to one or two . . .
So, how many friends is enough? That’s a tough one.
But the answer is almost never, “More.” Maybe we just need to make some decisions about the friendships we do have.
What are we to do? I’ve found an obvious solution, though it sounds callous:
Maybe we need to develop a “friend budget.”
That doesn’t mean one person is more valuable than another. It means that since time is such a limited resource, I need to budget it carefully.
It’s like doing charitable giving. There are a lot of charities and causes that I believe in. They’re doing amazing work and making a dent in the world. But since I only have so much money, I can’t support them all. I have to be realistic about my investments, and choosy about my choices.
It’s called opportunity cost. Whatever we say “yes” to, we’re automatically saying “no” to everything else at that time. Any time and energy we invest in any one thing means that time isn’t available for anything else.
If I give money to one cause, I’ve lost the opportunity to give that money to any other cause.
If I spend too much money buying things I don’t need, I won’t have money to buy things I do need.
That’s why it seems important to budget my involvement with people. It doesn’t mean some relationships are less valuable than others; but there’s only so much of my time to go around.
So, how should we budget friends? I’m sure it’s very fluid, but maybe we could prioritize people in six categories:
- Immediate – Our spouse, kids, grandkids – those that represent a lifelong commitment. These would be the ones we’re planning on keeping until the end. They get major investment of our time and energy.
- Closest – Our deepest friends, some extended family – people I that we care deeply about and they care deeply about us. We intentionally seek each other out. This could include old friends that we rarely see, but we pick right up where we left off each time. We call to schedule times together.
- Close – People we know fairly well, and have good conversations with when we connect. We’re interested in their lives, and enjoy occasional connections to catch up.
- Casual – People we’ve met or connected with in the past, and we can have good conversations. It’s genuine, but not necessarily intentional.
- Transactional – Business contacts, casual acquaintances, most social media connections that don’t fit in the other categories. Generally good people.
- Everybody else – That probably includes the 126 who have sent me friend requests that I don’t really know.
It feels dangerous to post this, because everyone reading will be wondering which category they’re in with me. That’s OK – it’s not a hard-and-fast set of rules, just a way of thinking to protect the people who matter most in our lives. People can move up, but space is limited at the top.
It keeps us from being people-pleasers, and from letting people at the top get cheated by those at the bottom.
I’m OK with 487 Facebook friends. I’ll check in occasionally – but then I’ll take a walk with my wife, have coffee with my kids, ice cream with my grandkids – and generally make appropriate investments in the people that matter most.
If you made a friend budget, who would be at the top?
Who should move up in the rankings?
Who should you move down?
It’s a way to take control of our time and lives – and who doesn’t want that?
Try it, and shoot me a note at mike@mikebechtle.com and tell me how it goes!