True Friends Can Be Counted On The Fingers Of One Hand
True friends can be counted on the fingers of one hand. This is something that does not surprise anyone once you have reached a certain period in your life and have accumulated many experiences.
In general, we strive to have a good relationship and to really connect with someone. We are looking for accomplices, people to count on, whose souls we can embrace and explore every feeling offered.
However, we don’t always succeed and most of our friendships end up being fleeting or not as deep as we would like. That is, we don’t have as many “soul” friends as we would like.
Only half of those considered soul friends really are
If we think about those special friends that we think we have and give them an honorary title in our heart, we will find a definite amount of them. Now we will have to divide this amount in half and we will have the number of “true friends” that we have.
This confirms a study by Tel Aviv University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: only half of those we consider “soul friends” really are. It highlights what experience tells us and learns over time.
A team of scientists from the two institutions mentioned have created a kind of “friendship machine” which, with the help of an algorithm, can assess the bidirectionality and reciprocity of our social relations.
That is, in a way, the algorithm tries to find out if those whom we consider to be our true friends regard us in the same way, place us at a rank similar to the one we give them.
The original study was conducted with 84 people and was then supported by a survey conducted with students from Israel, the United States and Europe. So, as Erez Shmueli, the head of the study, states:
“It was found that 95% of the research participants considered their friendships to be reciprocal. If you think someone is your friend, you expect them to feel the same way you do. But it does not work like that: only 50% of the interviewees were in the category of two-way friendship, that is to say that which is produced on the part of both parties ”.
True friendships are rare
True friendships are rare. It’s not something that surprises you, right? We can’t really generalize and say that the same thing happens to all of us but it is obvious that it happens with most of our contacts.
There may be circumstances that unite us and disunite us from the people we consider today (or yesterday) to be friends. It is not a question of quantity but of quality. With the passage of time and the accumulation of life circumstances that surround us, we learn to love our dearest companions more but their numbers decrease considerably.
In itself, this fact is neither bad nor strange but it is quite simply a constancy in life. Over time, feelings become more intense towards who we trust the most and who gives us the best “vibes”.
It is often a matter of instinct and coming together because if we believe that they do us good, we will have confidence and good feelings. This will bring us closer to the people we like and create clean and sincere friendships, those we call “real”….
Illustrations by Kristina Webb
