Goethe said, “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

That applies to relationships, too. Are the most important people in your life getting cheated because your casual relationships suck you dry of time and energy?

Maybe it’s time to triage your list.

Maybe you have toxic friends that keep seeking you out and demanding your attention. You don’t know how to say “no,” and it gives you less time with those people that give you the most life.

Or perhaps you feel that you have more value when you have a lot of followers on social media? Or does following others take away time that could be given to your most important relationships?

What about in “real life” – how many friends does it take to make you happy?

I asked someone that question once and they replied, “One more.”

How many should we have to maintain meaningful relationships?

What the Research Shows

There was actually some research done a few years back at Cornell University that described how it works.  Dr. Robin Dunbar did some intricate studies, and found that it relates to the size of a section of the brain called the neocortex that processes such things.

It turns out that most of us can keep track of about 150 people.  That doesn’t mean “best friends” – but people we recognize, interact with occasionally and who we have some connection with.  

We’ll have different levels of interaction with them, of course.  A few will reach “best friends” status, while others will be regular contacts, extended family members, work colleagues or people we do business with.  You might have a conversation with your doctor a few times a year, but with your spouse multiple times each day.

Dunbar suggests that most people find happiness with 3-5 best friends, one of them being their very best friend.  There’s a bigger circle after that with 30-50 good friends – and everybody else makes up the rest of that 150.

When it gets past 150, they’ll be pretty much off your radar. 

It’s like having a whole bunch of sweaters in your closet, but you end up only wearing 5-6 most of the time.

Even Jesus had a group of 70 people that were considered part of his “tribe.” Of those, there were 12 that he did life with. 3 of those were his closest friends, and 1 was his very closest friend.

Maybe we could learn something from that.

We only have so much time. How do we find more energy to give those people who matter most to us? By triaging our friend list.

The Facebook Factor

It turns out we have something called “social capital” – which means we have a certain amount of mental energy we can invest in our friendships.  If we try to give equal attention to everyone, our energy gets spread pretty thin.  We end up with a lot of shallow relationships.

That’s what can happen with social media.  If we try to keep track of all our “friends,” it uses up some of our social capital – so there’s less to use for our real relationships. “Face-to-face” connection is replaced with “face-to-screen.”

According to my Facebook page, I already have 444 friends.  Do I need more?

Some 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:

1. Where are they living?
2. What are they doing?
3. How much do they weigh?

They’re doing the same thing with us.

If I had 444 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. 

The Friend Budget

In the real world, we only have so much time for people interaction – usually less than what others expect from us.  Old friends invite us out for coffee, or want us to spend the day with them at some event.  How do you say ‘no’ without sounding uncaring?

I’ve found an obvious solution, though it sounds callous:

Maybe I 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 charitable giving.  There are a lot of charities and causes that I believe in.  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 I invest in any one person means that time isn’t available for anyone else.

That’s why it seems important to budget my involvement with people.  It doesn’t mean they’re less valuable; but there’s only so much of my time to go around.

So, how should we budget time with friends?  I’m sure it’s very fluid, but maybe we could prioritize people in six categories:

1. 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 a major investment of our time and energy.
2. Closest – Our deepest friends, some extended family – people 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 occasionally to schedule times together.
3. 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.
4. Casual – People we’ve met or connected with in the past, and we can have comfortable conversations.  It’s genuine, but not intentional.
5. Transactional – Business contacts, casual acquaintances, most social media connections that don’t fit in the other categories.  Good people, but we’re not doing life together.
6. Everybody else

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 444 Facebook friends.  I’ll check in occasionally – but then I’ll take a walk with my wife, have coffee with my kids, wrestle with my grandkids – and generally make appropriate investments in the people that matter most.

Think of the people in your “friend” list. What category are they in? And are they getting the amount of attention that’s appropriate?

Maybe it’s time to start your budget.

So, that’s my idea.  It’s not set in stone — it’s just an idea.  What do you think?  What would you change? We’d all love to hear your comments (below):