How many friends do you have

How Many Friends Should You Have and Why?

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Medically reviewed by Danielle Wade, LCSW — By Sonya Matejko — Updated on Nov 10, 2022

There’s no “right” number of friends you should have, but research says most people have between 3 and 5 close friends.

Friendship is necessary, but it can feel challenging to find people who really “get” you. What’s more, what you need from your friends might change as your life circumstances change.

Add in a culture where the number of friends you have is shown on your social channels and it can feel intimidating not to know exactly how many friends you’re “supposed” to have.

How many “real” friends a person has varies a lot, and it usually changes through the course of your life. Some people have higher social needs than others, which means they may want to have a greater number of friends. Those who value their alone time may need fewer friends, and that’s OK too.

In general, based on 2021 survey data, the average person in America has between 3 and 5 close friends. According to this survey:

almost half (49%) report having 3 or fewer close friends
over one-third (36%) report having between 4 and 9 close friends
13% say they have 10 or more close friends
12% say they have no close friends

Your number of friends might depend on many factors, including:

your age
marital status
occupation
cultural background
gender
where you live location

For example, the survey found that 76% of young adults have a friend they’ve known since childhood, versus 60% of seniors. It also found that young women (29%) are slightly more likely than young men (22%) to rely on friendships for support.

And the differences also extend to ethnicity, with 58% of Black Americans, 56% of Hispanic Americans, and 49% of white Americans reporting they are very or completely satisfied with how many friends.

Numbers aside, the type of friendships you have and the quality of those relationships tend to matter most later in life.

“The quality of friendships — to a person getting older — becomes more important than the number of friends they have,” says Colleen Wenner, a Clinical Director in Florida.

Humans are social by nature and friendships bring us many health and wellness benefits, including:

bringing joy and happiness
decreasing loneliness
elevating your self-confidence
helping you cope with stress

In short, good friends are good for you.

A 2020 study of 422 women (ages 31 to 77) found that being someone’s best friend related to higher life satisfaction. Feeling like you belong to a group increased life satisfaction, too.

The same study also found that more frequent visits with friends, plus how satisfied you are with your number of friends, were significant predictors of life satisfaction.

Why do friends make our lives better? According to Kara Nassour, LPC, NCC, in Austin, Texas, it’s because humans are naturally a very social species.

“We evolved to survive in groups of close friends and family,” explains Nassour — and, therefore, “a lack of friends increases our risks for anxiety, depression, trauma, and other mental illnesses.”

Finding friends can be challenging for many reasons, but rest assured you can find your people. Here are a few tips to help you make friends.

1. Be authentic

When making friends, you may feel inclined to mold yourself to meet others’ interests — but being inauthentic won’t result in true friendship.

On the contrary, “the best way to connect with others is by being yourself,” says Wenner. “You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to be genuine.”

2. Stay present

It’s natural to get distracted by your thoughts or worries in social situations, especially when trying to make new friends and overthinking, well…everything.

It’s essential to pause and bring yourself back to the moment to keep yourself open to connecting. Wenner shares how “if you stay present, then you won’t get so caught up in your head that you miss out on opportunities to meet people who might become friends.”

3. Know your interests

What are you doing when you feel your best? By knowing what lights you up, you set yourself up to meet more like-minded people.

“It’s much easier to get along with someone who shares your interests than with someone who doesn’t,” says Wenner. “Take the initiative to discover what interests you, pursue it, and then the friendships will naturally follow.”

4. Embrace awkwardness

Making friends can feel…awkward. But Nassour suggests not to be put off by a little awkwardness.

“It takes more than twenty hours of shared time for a friendly acquaintance to become a good friend,” says Nassour. “You will have to get through the awkward stages before you start feeling a real sense of trust and comfort.”

5. Get out there

To make friends, put yourself in places where you can meet new people.

You might try taking up a new hobby or visiting somewhere you haven’t been before. By getting out there (especially if it’s out of your comfort zone), you can learn more about yourself and what is important to you, including friendships.

How many friends does the average person have? The consensus is that it varies — and for a good reason. You are not average, but so much more.

If you are trying to make new friends or assess your current friendships, try starting with yourself. Consider what you need to feel fulfilled. Ask yourself:

What interests me?
What is holding me back from being authentic?
Where do I really want to end up?

Go deep so that your friendships can go deeper. And if you’re still curious, there are TED talks and podcasts for more. Good luck, friend.

Last medically reviewed on November 9, 2022

4 sourcescollapsed

Cox D. (2021). The state of American friendship: Change, challenges, and loss.
americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/
Degges-White S, et al. (2020). Friendships, subjective age, and life satisfaction of women in midlife.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adsp.12086
Nassour K. (2022). Personal interview.
Wenner C. (2022). Personal interview.

FEEDBACK:

Medically reviewed by Danielle Wade, LCSW — By Sonya Matejko — Updated on Nov 10, 2022

How many friends should you really have?

After two years of pandemic life, you could find yourself at a fork in the friendship road, choosing between a whittled-down social circle and becoming overextended trying to make up for lost time with everyone on the outer reaches of your network. Amid an ongoing loneliness epidemic, people may feel renewed in their efforts to revive their networks due to the anxiety-inducing realization that their friend group has shrunk to an all-time minimum. Realizing the potential of fostering just a few intimate relationships, however, can be empowering.

Having lots of friends does have benefits: Acquiring a large quantity of friends in your 20s can help inform the quality of friendships you’ll have in your 30s, according to research. “People in their 20s tend to want to build a big roster of friends, because their motive is to expand their sense of identity, and you can do that through different types of people,” says psychologist and friendship expert Marisa Franco, author of the upcoming book Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends. People who regularly interacted with 10 or more friends in midlife have higher levels of psychological well-being than those who had fewer than 10, according to a 2012 study. We also know that maintaining friendships leads to positive life satisfaction, minimizes stress, and even contributes to better physical health outcomes.

But you don’t need a roster dozens deep to enjoy the fruits of friendship. Franco says even having one friend is a net positive. “The biggest return we get in friendship is going from zero to one friend in terms of its impact on our mental health and well-being,” Franco says. “If you can get that deep with one person, it’s going to be powerful and it’s going to be impactful, and you don’t need to have a ton of friends. ”

Instead of stretching yourself thin trying to keep in contact with everyone you’ve ever met or feeling pressured to make new friends, it’s worth considering the value of a few close confidants.

All you need is three (or four, or five)

Humans have a limit on how many deep friendships they’re able to sustain. In the 1990s, evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar published a study claiming that humans can cognitively handle up to 150 meaningful social relationships (which includes family and friends) at any point, colloquially known as Dunbar’s Number. Not all 150 contacts are created equally, though. Out of dozens of connections, the number of close friendships people have, Dunbar found, is five. Similarly, a 2020 study found that having three to five close friends is enough to feel fulfilled.

Reaching this level of intimacy with a person requires a significant time investment — around 200 hours, researcher Jeffrey Hall found. To achieve this level of closeness with every person you encounter would be a time-consuming and exhausting task.

Those in whom you’ve invested the most time — say, a childhood friend or a colleague turned tier-one pal — are most likely to compose the inner circle of intimate friends. “Those relationships are very robust because you’ve invested so heavily in them, and they’re so mutual,” Dunbar says. “They’re the ones that you’ve known since you were in kindergarten and you’ve always kept in touch, and even if they go to Australia and you only see them once in a blue moon, you can pick that friendship up where you left off last time as though nothing’s happened.” Dunbar describes getting together with these friends as shifting into “automatic gear” because the relationship is so established.

These are the relationships where you can be unabashedly yourself. There’s no need to self-censor or perform for the most intimate friends, and they accept you for who you truly are, at your best and your not-so-best, says psychologist Andrea Bonior, author of Detox Your Thoughts: Quit Negative Self-Talk for Good and Discover the Life You’ve Always Wanted. The friends who make you feel energized, comfortable, restored, authentic, valued, and vulnerable — the ones you’d call immediately after receiving big news — are those likely to occupy special status. “Our deeper relationships help us feel loved for who we truly are rather than who we are telling everybody that we are,” Bonior says.

Thanks to social media, friendships are easily quantifiable, Bonior says, and it’s only natural to compare. When friends from college are constantly posting about their seemingly packed social schedules, feelings of inadequacy can arise or you may feel pressured to keep in touch with everyone you follow. However, our deepest friendships transcend the grid. The people you spend time with offline — and the care and support you give and receive tangibly — supersedes the curated version of your relationship. “Having 200 people say happy birthday to you online, that can create goodwill and a sense of belonging,” Bonior says. “It doesn’t really match the sense of ‘Things have gone really bad right now and I need somebody to listen and I know that they truly care about me. ’ That’s something that’s very profound.”

There’s an element of reciprocity to these relationships, too, Franco says. Just as your best friends build you up, you also delight in supporting them; you initiate a hangout just as often as they do. If they’re distant because they’re going through a rough time, you continue to show up for them anyway, knowing they’d do the same for you.

How to foster these relationships

It’s one thing to say you have friends, but it’s another to actually spend time with them. If you’re looking to deepen select friendships and elevate them to close friend level, you’ll need to share time and space. Most likely, your closest few are those who you see regularly and with whom you do fun activities, says Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas. Being available and having the energy to hang out are huge determinants to who makes it into the inner circle. A long-distance friend or one who is going through a major life change might not have the same time and space as you do for maintaining that deep relationship.

Having a reliable routine, like attending a weekly yoga class or grabbing coffee before work, ensures you’re seeing each other regularly, Hall says. Even something as casual as a spontaneous movie night together, Dunbar says, is enough to keep up the consistency. Knowing what’s going on in a person’s life from week to week or month to month helps you better connect in the moment and gives you opportunities to follow up with a quick text in between hangouts. “Knowing another person’s schedule is an act of intimacy,” Hall says.

Each of your close friends can fulfill a different role in your life, Bonior says. One friend may be the one you talk with about work stuff, another you confide in for relationship advice. “There’s not going to be one single friend that’s going to cover all those bases,” she says.

The most important thing to remember about these deep friendships, Dunbar says, is that they require effort. “These are very time-costly,” he says. You can’t expect to have intimacy with someone without spending time with them, knowing what’s going on in their lives, laughing together, and sharing in the hard times, too.

When just a few friends isn’t enough

While there are no hard-and-fast rules about how many close friends a person should have, a telltale sign you need more is if you feel lonely, Franco says. “Because that’s a sign that you’re not getting as much social interaction as your body needs,” she says.

Focusing on your community can help blunt the effects of loneliness. Joining a parent-teacher association at your kid’s school or getting involved with activities in your apartment building fosters a sense of belonging and connectedness “even if you have a best friend that lives far away from the neighborhood,” Bonior says. If you just moved to a new city or are a first-time parent, use these transitional life stages or identities to determine what types of people you can develop relationships with.

An easy and low-stakes way to bolster your social life is to engage in casual conversation with acquaintances and familiar faces — fellow parents at your kid’s soccer practice, the barista at your favorite coffee shop, a hairdresser — which has been shown to improve happiness. These low-stakes relationships have the potential to blossom into close friends, but you don’t have to know someone super well to reap the benefits of interacting with them: Research shows that people are happier and have a greater sense of belonging after chatting with an acquaintance. However, the healthiest “social diet” is one where you interact with folks whom you know well in addition to those you don’t.

Hall agrees that deeply investing in a few people has little downside so long as you’re turning to more than one person, since that sole confidant may have other obligations or conflicts preventing them from being there for you all the time.

If you’re feeling isolated, Hall points to studies that found that supporting others and communicating affectionately helps combat loneliness. So if you’re thinking of sending that encouraging text to a bud you fell out of touch with but who you know is going through a rough time, do it. “You benefit and you grow by the process of investing in that relationship,” Hall says. “I believe we have a fundamental need to belong and to be connected to one another, and if we nourish that need through acts of service to one another, we’re healthier people.”

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Girls, do you have many friends?

Girls, and you have a lot of ...

March 27, 2014, 13:58

25 answers

Last - April 05, 2014, 15:03 Moving

March 27, 2014, 14:07

March 27, 2014, 14:12

27 March 2014, 14:13

March 27, 2014, 2:21 pm

March 27, 2014, 2:22 pm

So at the moment I have 3 friends - a beloved man, mom and dog)))

27 March 24:14 24

Your + name

My friend is a mother, which does not prevent her from being a mother. At this stage, there is a husband, he is also my close friend (I hope he will remain so) + there are two girls who are congenial in spirit, with whom we have been constantly communicating for about 6 years. But I am not a friend in my social network. roles, maybe that's why there are not so many of them
In general, there is a very interesting idea about how social. networks contribute to the loneliness of a person - all these abundance of friends, acquaintances, photos from different parties and other carnival of fun - and it seems to an ordinary person that his life is empty and lonely.

March 27, 2014, 14:25

Your + name networks contribute to the loneliness of a person - all these abundance of friends, acquaintances, photos from different parties and other carnival of fun - and it seems to an ordinary person that his life is empty and lonely.

March 27, 2014, 2:27 pm

Vika

Your + nameMy friend is a mother, which does not prevent her from being a mother. At this stage, there is a husband, he is also my close friend (I hope he will remain so) + there are two girls who are congenial in spirit, with whom we have been constantly communicating for about 6 years. But I am not a friend in my social network. roles, maybe that's why there are not so many of them

In general, there is a very interesting idea about how social. networks contribute to the loneliness of a person - all these abundance of friends, acquaintances, photos from different parties and other carnival of fun - and it seems to an ordinary person that his life is empty and lonely.
The idea is really interesting. For example, I have not communicated with most of the people who are my "friends" for five years, or even more :)))

March 27, 2014, 14:38 14:38

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March 27, 2014, 2:53 pm

#14

Guest

also, with age, there are fewer and fewer "friends", there are a couple of people whom I appreciate and cherish relations with them . . at first I was worried when there was no one to tell something secret, and now and there is no desire)

March 27, 2014, 15:02

#15

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March 27, 2014, 15:05

9000 #17

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March 27, 2014, 20:46 9000 9000

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March 28, 2014, 02:11

#22

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March 28, 2014, 12:34

#23

March 28, 2014, 22:00

#24

n-ka

still worried that I had no one to walk with, thought I was wrong. Already in adulthood, I visited a psychologist for a while, she assured me that I simply belong to the type of people who do not need friends, which I no longer doubted at that time. After that, for the sake of interest, I visited a fortune-teller, and she, too, not knowing anything about me, said that I have no friends in my life and I don’t need them. But there are close people - my family, sister, boyfriend, besides, there are a lot of good people at work. And I write my innermost thoughts in my diary.

April 05, 2014, 03:03 PM

#25

Why do you think you don't have close friends right now?

I am waiting for an answer, good luck :)

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Ask for the one who wanted to be evil

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antidepressants

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Do you have many friends?

October 17, 2011, 20:47

21 replies

Last - October 28, 2011, 20:38 Removing

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17 October 2011, 23:42

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October 17, 2011, 2011 23:57

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October 18, 2011, 00:17

Enough Write to write this "well then so "what does this crazy phrase mean

Your text

October 18, 2011, 00:19

#10

Yana

What's wrong with her?

Your text

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October 18, 2011, 04:28 9000 9000 9000 #13,0003

October 18, 2011, 09:46

#14

anonymous

acquaintances with whom they spent time (mutually beneficial communication)

how are you and your friends now? Who do you communicate with?

October 18, 2011, 09:48

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October 18, 2011, 12:07

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#17

Anonymous

22222 oh, there used to be girlfriends, but then you know, life somehow divorced us, but now, after the lapse of time, I understand that these are not friends at all, but acquaintances with whom they spent time (mutually beneficial communication)

the same.

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