So it's not surprising to see yet another article discussing that most folks have a very small circle of truly good friends.  

Hopefully, this isn't a surprise to most folks, but in an age of social networking, it's a reminder that can easily be overlooked.  Accumulating friends on MySpace or Facebook can become an obsession of sorts.  I've even found that my wife and I will occasionally joke with one another, asking how many friends the other has and seeing who has more.  It's a sick sort of thing, because it turns relationships into commodities for personal gratification and fulfillment.  If you get enough attention, if you have enough friends, you begin to - either in your head or in reality - enter the nether-world of celebrity.  

It's my nature to suspect those with hundreds and hundreds of friends of being narcissistic.  Or is it perhaps my own narcissism that I project to others?  Having lived with extroverts, I'm aware of the thin line between recognizing God-created differences, and viewing those different from us as somehow wrong, as though our way is the right way or the best way.  

I like the woman who talks about how she implements an intentional plan of staying in touch with her closest friends.  Intentionality - for me - can make or break a relationship, and more often or not, it breaks it.  Perhaps that's just my bizarre standards.  But it seems as though others recognize that if you don't take the time to invest a phone call or a lunch with someone pretty regularly, the issue of how good a friend you consider them to be has to be addressed.  Part of friendship is time together - conversationally and otherwise.  For a nation that 'experts' claim is the 'loneliest' in the world, perhaps these are good reminders that we have to work at things.

Perhaps spending less time on FB and MySpace would give me more time to invest in my closest friends.  Hmmm...I'll have to give that a try.  After I see if I have any new friend requests on FB.