Frequently Asked Questions About Friends Study Guide

Frequently Asked Questions About Friends. Selena Gomez has 107 million followers on Instagram, some people consider this 107 million friends (“No New Friends”). A person has close friends and acquaintances, but they do not know how many should they have and what happens when they move away. I believe that a person can only have about five appropriate close friends and about 150, maximum, acquaintances and when they move away, you can still be friends. A study by anthropologist Robin Dunbar researched how many friends the mind can handle. He said humans max at 150 relationships, that is how many the brain can handle. For example, you can think of it as a growing circle. The core has around 5 close friends, then the circle expands to 15, then 50, then 150 being the acquaintances (“No New Friends”). Another example is Dunbar’s research itself. Dunbar noticed that males and females maintain friendships differently. Females stay in constant contact while males get together and do things together (“No New Friends”). This is shows that whether you are a girl or a boy, you should have about 5 close friends because that is how much you can handle. The mind can handle up to 150 friends and five close friends according to Dunbar’s research.

A close friend, for example, is a friend who you have might have known for a very long time and you trust this person very much.. You would tell them secrets and your opinions about anything or feelings toward something. An acquaintance would be someone you just met and probably do not talk to a lot. This would be a classmate or a coworker, for example. This shows a big difference between acquaintances and close friends, so people do not end up putting acquaintances in their inner circle. An inner circle should have close friends who you trust, then as you grow out of each circle, the less you know about that