Who do we keep in touch with?

In my quest for understanding I have now considered who we keep in touch with. I started thinking about this on Sunday while waiting for the bus back to Waterloo. I lined up and a fellow lined up behind me. He started making small talk, and quite frankly I wasn't in the mood, but I was polite of course. I must point out, I know this fellow from first year of university but we never became friends. In our few minutes together we reintroduced ourselves and acknowledged that we recognized each other from frosh week. We ended up on separate buses but he did give me his email address much to my surprise.

So I got thinking about who I have stayed in touch with from first year of uni and who I'll stay in touch with now that I'm graduating. I once told a friend that I think I have too many friends. Hehe, I don't mean that in an arrogant way of course, but I am socially inclined and I love meeting new people. I started to realize though that you can't keep a close friendship with many people and then I became aware of the spheres of friendship that surround me.

So taking the psychological perspective (I know, big nerd! lol), I am in a central circle and my future partner will overlap with me. Beyond this core there is room for a handful of really close friends, i.e. best friends, maybe three in total. Beyond this sphere are close friends and there are many of these, maybe 10. The next sphere contains friends and there are maybe 100 people here. Next are the aquaintences, numbering in the hundreds. Finally, the last sphere is all of the people I have yet to meet and there are 1000's.  

Point is this, I have limited resources (time, emotion, energy, etc.) to devote to pursuing friendship. For this reason, I think it is only possible to maintain so many people in each of the spheres and the self is most important of course.

To me it's become inevitable that I will lose touch with people I meet, even the ones I like.

It's also interesting to consider people who come and go from our lives and why they do it when they do. It's really painful when people choose to leave. I've had it happen a few times in the past few years. I can't say that it has become any easier.

All my friends offer me something (and hopefully I offer you something too), so stick around. Okay?! ;)