Do more friends make you happier? I do not think so, and I'll tell you why I'd rather have a few favorite people than a huge circle of friends.
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A big girls gang to flock around, just seems to be a real friend-must-have. The more, the better, the Social Network screams at us, where all of a sudden breakfast platters for the "10 most important people in my life" are covered. Nowhere is Taylor Swift appearing without her "Girls Squad", who seems to be supporting and completing herself in all sorts of ways. Gorgeous, one might say. But have you ever tried to have 10 close friends? Sure, that sounds great when you do great things with everyone - 10 times more birthday presents, 10 times more problem solvers, 10 times best friends. Unfortunately, the bill does not work.
Because a friendship always involves unspoken duties, you want the other to be there for you, to listen 100% and nothing is more important. This is also wonderful with 2 or 3 favorite people, but with a whole clique? That means 10x birthday and probably also the birthday of the partner, husband and children. There are also weddings, christenings and so on. That creates a pretty tight schedule. Do you also like everything, but at some point a certain fatigue creeps in, another 5 hours in the kitchen to bake the great cake for your birthday, another new bridesmaid dress and what happens when events roll over? Since two girls are leaving at the same time or get the application of their lives. What to do, to tear does not work.
And it is precisely this feeling that, in case of doubt, causes tremendous emotional stress, as even the renowned sociology professor Brian Gillespie has confirmed. "It can cause a lot of stress if you do too many things for too many different people." So you also make a choice here, because you have to decide for one. And how that ends, you can imagine.
So I think it's this way: Many acquaintances are fine, but important is the small, intimate, special core - the people who really know, love and whom we truly trust . Then you have 2 maybe 3 favorite people for whom you do all the things you love to do for your loved ones: being a bridesmaid, making cakes, popping champagne bottles and coming to console in the middle of the night.
And with all others? If you're just a guest at the wedding, bring along a nicely wrapped birthday present and, at the next girls' night, bump into the "bastard" who does not even know what he had on the woman.
In this sense: To the favorite people, of whom we have luckily found a few for all life!
