One of the most e-mailed stories in the Times is the one about how great having a large circle of friends is for your well-being. I'm all for friendship, but I'm also a firm believer that there is a strict limit on the number of real friends anyone can have at one time. And it's about five. True friendship is a time consuming (though rewarding) activity. People who have five hundred "friends' on their Facebook account are kidding themselves. I'll bet they can't name more than ten or fifteen of them, and provide enough information for a eulogy for more than a half dozen. I believe there is a circle around you that will allow you to nurture and love and care for no more than those five folks. Everyone else is in an outer circle. Doesn't mean you don't love 'em. doesn't mean you wouldn't do anything for 'em. But for most of every day of your existence, they may as well not exist. If someone in your real friend inner circle dies, or you have a terrible fight, they can be replaced by one of those outer-ringers, though that's never done casually. But no matter how hard you try, you can's squeeze another "friend" inside with the five.
[Note: the photo is from about 1962, friends gather in our backyard in Queens. At least one of them, Steve, sitting back-right in the picture, I'm still in frequent contact with. Now that's friendship!]
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