How many close relationships do you have?
I asked my Father n' law and Elizabeth this question after reading this article in "Wired" magazine. And the conversation was very interesting as we talked about what a friend is, what a close friend is and how many we feel we have. I have, as of this afternoon, on twitter Following: 441 Followers: 477, Facebook 796 but how many "bosom buddies" do I have? In the wired article they found the average person had 110 Facebook Friends and by looking at the people in their photos that the average person had 6.6 close intimate friends. I just read in this article that now people have closer to two intimate friends.
I am really curious, How many friends do you have? Bosom Buddy, Pale, BFF or whatever you call your peep. How many are you really "Tight" with?
Intersting article. I have over a 1,000 friends on FB and I do know all of them. But how many do I stay in contact with? Interesting question. I guess the question is for me, who would I go to if I had a problem that I needed to talk about. That is the way I would determine who is a "tight" friend. Holla. TB signing out.
Posted by: Terry Boynton | October 20, 2009 at 05:20 PM
My answer is 3... My husband counts, right? Well, I have my husband, who is my best friend. Then there are my two other best friends... Keri and Alicia. The other-other halves as Keri has dubbed it! I like that... my other-other half. Much better than BFF, or peeps, or Bosom Buddy!
Posted by: Jenny | October 20, 2009 at 06:12 PM
Tis an interesting question, indeed.
I have about 950 friends on Facebook (can't log in right now for the exact number!), but it's funny because I barely interact on Facebook with most of my "tight" friends. I'd break mine down by figuring out who I can be 100% vulnerable with (or as close as one can be to 100%!).
At a totally vulnerable level:
Moriah, Mom, and Dad. 2 people @ church, 3 from high school, 3 from college.
I find that certain life seasons bring out different strong friends. For instance, I had many close friends in high school, but a small remnant still remain INTIMATE (and ever growing so). Same with college. I often wonder to what extent we make efforts toward certain relationships BECAUSE they represent a particular season. After college, I made a conscious effort to stay close with my friends because we were no longer in a 24/7 community. Only a few seemed to actually engage with those efforts, so the intimacy only remained with a few. However, if I hadn't left college, I may not have nurtured some of the relationships I made there to the extent I do now.
It seems that departure, or rapid life change really tests relationships. It gives us an easy out, or an opportunity to give a little extra energy to something that was just a given before. I find this sort of defines the strength of relationships without our ever paying attention. It's sort of a natural indicator.
Interesting stuff.
Posted by: Joseph | October 23, 2009 at 11:46 AM