Few close friends vs. having a ton of them 

Himika Akram reporter 

Everybody comes into our lives for a reason, some give us memory, some give us lessons. Through the course of life, I have met so many wonderful people in my life! I wanted to be friends with many of them, I befriended some, for some, that did not work out. But what I noticed the most is, the older I was growing, I started losing friends and now I am at that point when I have only four friends left, all of which lives in different countries around the world, but they mean the world to me. 

Yes, sometimes I feel that pang of jealousy and cannot help but compare my friend-circle to those, who continuously puts pictures on social media with all the smiling faces, having a blast, partying out a lot with the caption ‘best day ever.’ But that’s it, nothing beyond that momentary jealousy and comparison. I truly believe, it’s a blessing to have a few really close friends than having an army. You know each other’s darkest secrets, biggest insecurities  on ranting with a good pair of ears listening to you, giving you suggestions or advices when you need them badly, that is when the friendship goes far beyond the surface level, and it becomes a real bonding of souls.  

According to my observation, people who are friends with many people, can barely be a real friend. He or she might be popular person, but not a friend really. When you have a large group of friends, how you are getting to spend time with all of them? Eventually you would see the friendship is becoming contentious. Many friends gradually become a less reliable thing. There is a popular saying ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth.’ This is very true in case of friendship. When you have many friends, each one of would bring different idea, vibe, energy, expectations and mood, which would spoil your brain. I would rather give one person 5 hours then splitting those 5 hours among 5 friends. That is just waste of time, money and resource. 

I have seen many people think, having a lot of friends is good, because in time of need they might come to your rescue. This myth is even prominent during this era of social media, when people prefer to have a shallow, broad network over real friendship. Well, that is wrong. At the end of the day, you see specific 4.5 people always stand by you when you need support, but rest of them are around you only when you are having a good time, and in your rough time they only render lip-service.  

I see many people here, in the USA, loosely call anybody their friend.  But there is a big difference between friends and acquaintances. The word ‘friend’ is very deep. Anybody cannot be that to you. In this era of social networking tools, when relationships are becoming growingly virtual, it is important to interact with as many people as possible. But that does not mean all of them are expected to be your friends. If you do not get to pull each other’s leg sometimes, laugh at each other’s mistakes sometimes, cannot share the food from the same plate, cannot be comfortably ugly in each other’s presence, cannot openly say what’s bothering you, then what kind of friendship is this? I am very proud of the little squad I have and would love to keep my circle limited to that.  We really need a few good-hearted people in life who truly care about us than maintaining a huge circle which is superficial and limited to posting selfies only.