Humans are social animals
Muse #257 - I am less so to my detriment
Yesterday I was moaning about my social outcast status. Recently I have been reading Robin Dunbar’s most recent works “Friends”. He presents a compendium of interesting research on humans and social networks.
The fact is that in most cases we do need a social network of sorts as we are hugely programmed in the initial stages of our lives by the people around us and this continues until our last day. Very few can get away with being without a network that they can derive something from and it is a critical part of being healthy. That’s the way we are designed.
The smaller our networks are, probably the worse we will be in most cases. Especially in my context apart from my intimates, the initial circles (Close/Best/Good) are close to Zero. It is probably a combination of choice and not putting the required effort to create the right people in the right circles (except for family and work where we inherit the ones we get to know) - plus the effort to nurture the relationship to something meaningful to people on both sides of it.
And one of my work over the next period of time is to diligently create and nurture people to whom I would want to relate as well as people who would want to relate to me. A tall order of behavior changes from a lifetime of established behaviors. An interesting challenge indeed.
Resources:
You Can Only Maintain So Many Close Friendships - www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/05/robin-dunbar-explains-circles-friendship-dunbars-number/618931/