Less Friends > More Friends
A few years ago, if you were to tell me that less friends were better than more friends, I would have looked at you like you had 3 heads.
What do you mean??
Popular means who has the most friends! No?
NO.
That’s a foolish belief that has been perpetuated by the mainstream society.
But in my eyes, that is a limiting belief that will have you making a lot of social mistakes.
You may be looking at me like I have 3 heads.
But let’s enter the social dynamics world together & see if we can change your perspective.
The Popular College Kid
In college, I was feeling super lonely for a while.
So I decided to join a fraternity to build my tribe from scratch.
Joining the fraternity was not easy by means, but it was 100% worth it.
Why?
Because I ended up going from a lonely loser to being surrounded by friends.
Not sure if you know how the fraternity life works.
But if feels like your social life is injected with steroids. People who you’ve never met come up to you and begin talking to you like you are a celebrity.
I remember my small circle turning into a massive social circle out of nowhere.
But it didn’t end there. I ended up becoming the vice president of my fraternity and soon began gathering even more attention.
New parties, new club events, new hang out sessions and so much more!
Wow, life was great…
Bring on the Snakes
As I was attracting more people into my circle I noticed something was happening.
‘What?’
I noticed that I was feeling more lost.
One circle of my friends wanted to go to this event, the other one wanted a 1 on 1 hang out session and the others wanted to get their gossip on.
Huh?
What was happening?
I began to feel more anxiety because it seemed like I had to find a way to try to appeal to a bunch of people.
But it didn’t end there.
Secrets that I told people in as confidential information began to get leaked to the public.
Who was telling my secrets to other people?
I looked around in my circle, but there were too many people to keep track of.
Who were the snakes?
Who were the real ones?
Wait! Better question.
Are any of them real?
But the spookiest thing was that even though my circle was bigger than it had ever been, I had felt lonelier than ever.
This didn’t make sense.
My entire life, I thought that popular meant having more friends.
But how come I don’t feel happy?
Something doesn’t feel right…
Time for a change
By my final year in college, I had tanked in many of my engineering classes.
After the mediocre grades began to pile up, my back was pushed closer into the corner.
My engineering adviser pulled me to her office one day and gave me an ultimatum.
She said either I pass with a certain GPA or I would be kicked out of the program.
Whoa!
I had just worked so many years to get this far. And now I risked being kicked out & have all my hard work not count for anything?
This level of fear made me go back to stage 1.
Loner status.
I cut off all my friends, and went complete monk mode.
In this monk mode, I went back to the basics & would find myself studying all the time.
This new lifestyle of being a loner allowed me to find a strange level of peace that had seeemed to be missing for a long time.
Strangely, I began to enjoy my alone time more than I ever did with a massive herd following me around.
But I knew the dangers of being a loner in my freshman year in college. So I slowly began adding people back to my squad.
1 by 1…
My social circle was being engineered once again, but this time with diligence.
The Less Friends > More Friends Epiphany
As I built my social circle from the ground up, I decided to cap it off this time.
Unlike the first time where I had nonstop people entering, this time they had to pass a few requirements.
These requirements allowed me to maintain my sanity & gave birth to a life changing epiphany.
The epiphany was that less friends ACTUALLY meant popular, not more friends.
Why?
Because with less friends, you adopt the ‘quality over the quantity’ mindset.
With more friends, you adopt the ‘quantity over the quality’ mindset.
Here is a major social dynamics concept:
Humans are creatures of energy. In order to build social bonds, you need to INVEST energy.
But energy is finite. You cannot possibly give sufficient energy to everyone.
Well, you can…But it will be sub par social bonds.
And when you get sub par social bonds, you end up becoming with a bunch of friends who should not be in your circle.
Snakes, weasels & haters.
Where do you Go from here?
You need to know yourself if you want to find the right friend circle.
After I went back to the loner phase during my poor grades, I was able to find myself.
And as I learned more about myself, I was able to find out what I wanted from friends.
And by figuring out what I wanted in my friends, I was able to be more selective.
No longer was every bubba allowed into my close circle.
Acquaintance? Sure.
But friend was now a more sacred social bond.
Which is why you need to use your alone time to reflect & introspect.
Don’t be alone & have your face glued to technology.
Learn about yourself and you will learn about the social bonds that you need!
As you find out who you want & need in your circle, you are able to allocate the correct amount of time & energy to the right people.
You solidify the bonds with the winners & weaken the bonds with the losers.
As for the acquaintances, you are able to keep them in your herd & contact them to provide value & seek value.
Keep your friend circle small & acquaintance circle big.
That’s how the social game was meant to be played.
Less Friends beat More Friends any day of the week
As you mature, you’ll notice that your circle is getting smaller and smaller.
This is good because this allows you to eventually learn this lesson one day.
This isn’t exclusive information or anything.
But you can cheat code to the small circle sooner & ditch the brainwashed version of society’s definition of popularity.
GIve a try & you will realize how much this post makes sense.
Keep the circle small.
Amplify your clarity.
Maintain your peace.
Play the social game like a winner.
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– ArmaniTalks 🎙️🔥
