age where you have the most friends and losing touch

donfers · 28-04-2013 09:09PM #1

most of us grew up in neighbourhoods where we had friends who lived near us, and then of course off to primary schhol, secondary school, university, job (s), hobbies/sports etc and most of us would make friends in all of these areas

do people get to an age where they have too many friends, say the mid twenties when you may still have school friends, uni friends, work friends, friends from your hobby/sport and thus is there a kind of unconscious decision at that age to shed some friends by not making as much effort......then of course you have other people who just up sticks and go to some far and exotic land to start all over again and now we have the facebook factor where it's the easiest thing in the world to renew old and forgotten acquaintances

...so having said all that, i guess i have a few questions

do you think there is an age in life where people have an excessive amount of friends?
what do you think is the ideal number of friends?
when you lose touch with people, haven't seen then in years, at what point does it become too awkward to acknowledge the friendship, 10 years without contact, for example or more/less?
How do you choose what friends to keep and who to lose contact with, is it a personal choice or more a case of circumstances?
when people start families does the need for friends become less?

thank you for participating

The Backwards Man · 28-04-2013 09:15PM

Never had any, never want any. Friends are just strangers who know your name.

con1421 · 28-04-2013 09:16PM

In my own experience, I had the most friends just after I left school/started college. I had a lot of school friends/friends from work/friends from college. Sadly for me 2 or 3 years after I left school those school friends started to fade. It was really nobody's fault (no fights or anything) we just went our separate ways (different jobs/college and stuff). My best friends from 4 years ago are non existent anymore mostly living in Australia or abroad and as a result contact is limited. The last 3 years I have made some really close friends but that will change again as I'm moving to America in a few weeks. So when I decide to come back I'm not sure who will still be here. I guess I have gained/lost some real good friends....it's just life I guess

brummytom · 28-04-2013 09:17PM

donfers wrote: »

do you think there is an age in life where people have an excessive amount of friends? Depends on the person. For me and people I know, probably late teens/early twenties.

what do you think is the ideal number of friends? Good friends - 4 or 5. Other 'Mates' - 10ish

when you lose touch with people, haven't seen then in years, at what point does it become too awkward to acknowledge the friendship, 10 years without contact, for example or more/less? A year after

How do you choose what friends to keep and who to lose contact with, is it a personal choice or more a case of circumstances? Lose the dickheads

when people start families does the need for friends become less? For my parents, my mom and her friends all had kids around the same time which brought them closer together. My dad ended up drifting away from his own.

Personally, I've lost and gained quite a few friends in the past year. Going to uni and (without sounding like a pretentious knobhead), meeting people that I could actually relate to, made me realise that I didn't actually like a lot of my friends. A common past/memories can only go so far, when you realise your personalities are so different you don't actually want to be around them, it's time to slowly drift away from them.

shopaholic01 · 28-04-2013 09:44PM

donfers wrote: »

what do you think is the ideal number of friends

1 or 2 real friends who know the real you, who won't judge you for your idiosyncrasies and you can trust 100%.

You can add on as many acquaintances as you need for your social life as you like after that.

belcampprisoner · 28-04-2013 09:46PM

do facebook friend count I have 5000

tomboylady · 28-04-2013 09:51PM

There are very different branches of friends; childhood friends, school friends, college friends, real-life friends (ie. those after you leave college, meet through work, socialising, etc). And a lot of the time most of the categories cannot relate to each other. I had a lot of friends in school, but only a few close ones. Same story in college. I remember inviting friends from home to visit me at college for a weekend and having a party with both sets of friends. They didn't get on at all, didn't see the point of each other, and I spent the whole night trying to entertain everyone and get both groups to mix. It was a bit like being at a wedding where the families stick to their own and don't mix together on the day!

age where you have the most friends and losing touch

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