Freinds, how many do you have ?

by Satanus 32 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Satanus

  I'll start. I'm low on friends, for various reasons. Scientists poke their calculators into everything, and the number of friends we can have is one of them. Here is what one of them came up w.

  ---

  The way in which our social world is constructed is part and parcel of our biological inheritance. Together with apes and monkeys, we're members of the primate family – and within the primates there is a general relationship between the size of the brain and the size of the social group. We fit in a pattern. There are social circles beyond it and layers within – but there is a natural grouping of 150.

  This is the number of people you can have a relationship with involving trust and obligation – there's some personal history, not just names and faces.

  And this is is the Dunbar number! How did you come up with this concept?

  I was working on the arcane question of why primates spend so much time grooming one another, and I tested another hypothesis – which says the reason why primates have big brains is because they live in complex social worlds. Because grooming is social, all these things ought to map together, so I started plotting brain size and group size and grooming time against one another. You get a nice set of relationships.

  It was about 3am, and I thought, hmm, what happens if you plug humans into this? And you get this number of 150. This looked implausibly small, given that we all live in cities now, but it turned out that this was the size of a typical community in hunter-gatherer societies. And the average village size in the Domesday Book is 150 [people].

  It's the same when we have much better data – in the 18th century, for example, thanks to parish registers. County by county, the average size of a village is again 150. Except in Kent, where it was 100.

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/14/my-bright-idea-robin-dunbar

  If the wt was divinely directed, its congregations would all be of about this number.

  S

  Ps, the people of kent must be assholes;)
• 

  LouBelle

  hmm interesting....

  I have very few close friends and they have been scattered to other cities and I only ever see them now and again in a year. I'm finding it more difficult to make friends - people seem not to want to branch out and accept new ones. I have tried to be social at my new company but *shrug* people are more interested in their phones, AND I am not going to beg anyone to be my friend.

  Also I find that I treasure deep relationships, I want to be able to have fun with my friends but also have meaningful conversations, we don't always have to be on the go go in order to enjoy each others company.
• 

  DesirousOfChange

  Maybe Kent had the internet?

  As great of "friends" that there are on sites like this, it is really difficult to make sincere friends via a keyboard. People used to interact more. They didn't have 150 TV channels, DVDs, "social" media?, etc etc. So yes, it's harder to make friends when you never leave the house.

  JWs are forced to leave the house for meetings 2 or more times weekly. They are forced to interact with their "friends" at the KHall, and they are told they are supposed to befriend and "love" all those newly interested and all those "weird" JWs that don't gel with anyone else in society. Ta Da! Friends! At least until the time they are "told" NOT to be your friends.

  It's harder in the real world to make real friends. It takes effort.

  Doc
• 

  DATA-DOG

  I don't have any real friends except for the people that I have met through studying TTATT. All others are aquaintences, with the condition that I believe exactly as they do in all matters. I must also blindly follow the GB. Fortunately, I am an INTJ, so solitude does not bother me all that much. Like Jeremiah, I would rather be alone than be with a false friend.
• 

  mrsjones5

  I have few friends and a few aquintences. Sometimes I think I need more friends, other times I think the few I have are quite enough. I don't make friends easily and for me that's ok. I like to think I'm more quality focused vs quantity.
• 

  James Brown

  I have a lot of acquaintances but I don't have any friends.

  I'm fine with that at 60 years old.

  When I worked at the county jail, midnights, I could talk all night long to most anybody

  who came through the door and find out a lot about a person. But still I only consider them acquaintances.

  I may or may not do favors for them and they may or may not do favors for me.

  Oh I forgot I have 114 friends of facebook and 15,245 on Myspace.
• 

  Lozhasleft

  At a recent celebration there were around 60 people on my invitation list. Having said that, in terms of real 'close' friends, I can count them on one hand. That feels right for me and I remember reading that it was as it should be. A family member has a theory that he only has a limited amount of time and energy and he chooses to spend it on people he loves, his reasoning is that if he spreads himself too thinly around too many people, everyone loses out, including himself. I think he might have a point.

  I enjoy mixing and being with friends but I do love to be at home with hubby, cos he's my best friend.

  Loz x
• 

  d

  I have two good friends the rest are just people I work with or go to school with.
• 

  Giordano

  This was a real problem when we left the ‘truth’. As witnesses we had the religion in common, attended meetings together and had the opportunity to develop friendships. As conditional as they were......... there was a real sense of loss when we left.

  Eventually we had two very good friends in our lives. They were fellow artists so we had that in common. Because we worked at home and traveled a lot we seldom got to meet people in our neighborhood.

  Some of that was probably a hold over from our JW years and it was our loss.

  However when we traveled to do an art show we would see our fellow exhibitors and many of them became friends. The only problem was they were scattered across the country. However it was obvious that

  friendships are easier to make if you have something important in common and the opportunity to share some time together

  When we decided to retire to Lexington VA, a historic town of 7000 with two colleges we barely knew anyone.......... however this time out we were determined to make an effort to meet more people.

  After living there for a month or so we decided to throw ourselves a welcome to the neighborhood party........all the neighbors and a few of the people we had already met showed up. We had forty people in our home. Many returned the invitation. It turned out that Lexington was a very social town.

  A lot has to do with the type of place you live in. Our town lends itself to accessibility. The person you met a week ago is in line with you at the post office. Or you run into one another on the street. Frequent contact allows for casual conversation.

  Most people are happy and proud to be living here and that translates into a common bond.

  There’s another factor at work here as well. We have over one hundred non profits that help provide vital services that the city can not fund.

  My wife and I have been volunteers since we moved here. We have met a lot of people through our volunteer work. Once again a common interest, a shared experience and time to get to know one another makes it easier to develop friendships.
• 

  NVR2L8

  I have helped many work associates to develop and thrive professionally and many have become friends. I spent 5 decades as a JW and got to know many people who claimed were my brothers. Unfortunately when they moved to another congregation it was the end of our friendship because we no longer would get together...what's the use of having brothers if they have no time to spend with you. The same is true for my JW family. If I don't call them or make an effort to keep in touch, they won't because they're so busy pioneering or caring for their brothers in their respective congregation. Of course the WT makes sure your time is all devoted to them...but once in a while you get to see your friends at the DA...