Who's In Your Five?

Take an inch-wide, mile-deep social strategy to deepen meaningful relationships.

Facebook says I have 1,012 friends and I’ve been adding them since 2004. 

With all these friends and being more connected than ever, how is it that I can feel so lonely? I imagine, I’m not the only one.  

Maybe 1,012 is too many, but 150, which has been scientifically proven by Dubar, has to be the right number of friends, right?

Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.

I still think that 150 is too many. Why? More people in your circle dilutes the amount of time you can spend with any one person. It’s math.

The classic office water cooler scenario painfully paints the routine perfectly. 

From Nov 1 2021 New Yorker

Even after working with someone for 20 years, talking everyday, how is it that co workers don’t know one another? We don't need to be close with every co worker, neighbor or anyone if we don’t want, but I am saying that if relationships rely on casual banter, we can’t expect it go anywhere or to fulfill our social needs. We can’t fill our void with empty social interactions. If we do, we will be left feeling lonely.   

Most of the interactions in our day and the people in my friend group of 1012 get summed up by the New Yorker comic. 

There is a solution.

Just like the secret to time management or tidying up, it’s not about becoming more efficient or a visit to the Container Store, it’s having less.  

What’s the proposed solution? 

1. First we should take the inch wide, mile deep strategy. Identify fewer relationships and invest in them. 

2. Strive for conversations that lead to intimacy*. 

*Intimacy can, but doesn’t necessarily mean physical. Textbook definition of intimacy is close familiarity or friendship. 

How do we do it?

Curate An Inch wide, Mile Deep Social Circle 

In the early 2000s, before there were smartphones, T Mobile launched a plan where you received unlimited calling and text to 5 different people. Getting overcharged for going over your minutes was a big deal and it mattered to people. It was a marketing success and forced you to be deliberate with your social interactions. 

If we went old school to determine your friends, I’d ask you which phone numbers you have memorized or who you have saved into speed dial.

Today, through email, text, direct message, and social media, there are no limits to how many people you can reach and how often. We aren’t forced to differentiate who is a friend and who is just an acquaintance. Because of the sheer number of 1,012, I get overwhelmed and then resort to a social media post to replace a conversation.

Start filling your social bucket by identifying your five.

Who are the five people you’d like to spend time with every week? The people, with whom you’d like to deepen your relationship.

Start here because if you don’t know who is in your 5, you are going to end up with a lot of surface level relationships.  

Less is more can bring joy. Here are examples from Marie Kondo’s Art of Tidying Up:

• Rather than a closet full of clothes, being able to pull anything out blindly and loving it

• Rather than a wall of books, a shelf with five of your favorites you would read again and again

Create Intimacy with 1:1 Conversations

Once you’ve identified your five, you need to find a time and/or place. Hint: The water cooler is not the best option.

People go to the “water cooler” to stretch their legs, get a healthy distraction or hard to believe, get water. If people are going to chat, it tends to be light for fear of getting sucked into a long drawn-out discussion that runs an entire morning, killing productivity.   

Where is the best place and time?

I’m a fan of impromptu long conversations, but if you aren’t having these already, then schedule it. 

When do you have an hour to catch up with a friend? 

A whole hour? I don’t think I even have an hour to myself. 

If this relationship is important to you, then you can find a way to spare an hour. Maybe it’s during your commute, during your lunch, right at the end of your work day, or to replace the time you would have spent on social media updating your status. 

If you can, I encourage you to do this in person. Physical presence is another layer of intimacy.

Other than eating or drinking together, my favorite is a walk. There’s enough of a healthy distraction to help stay relaxed and keep the conversation loose. As a bonus, you can spend time in nature, get fresh air and make a huge dent in your daily steps goal. 

If you aren’t used to having conversations without an agenda, don’t worry, you’ll figure it out over time through consistency. What’s important is that you both want to strengthen your relationship and that you have time blocked off regularly, at least once a month.

If you are looking for a way to mix things up, you could work your waythrough this list of 36 questions that lead to love. They are from a study by psychologist Dr. Arthur Aron that sought to speed up intimacy by having two people ask each other a series of increasingly personal questions. By sharing with and learning from another person, bonds are strengthened and closeness is achieved. 

Results aren’t guaranteed, but the two people involved in the original study got married six months later.  

In Summary:

• Identify Who is in Your 5. Less is more.

• Schedule a monthly hour to catch up either over the phone or in person.

You might not have 1,012 friends, but you’ll at least have a handful of close ones that matter. And best of all, you won’t feel lonely or at least less lonely. 

PS If you made it this far, you might be interested in my memoir Beyond the American Dream. It’s a story about how my young family left our on track lives in California to explore a life abroad.

Check out the reviews on Goodreads and you can order it on Amazon.