Is social life also a numbers game?

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They say dating is a numbers game, but what about social life and friends?

I do not have much of a social life outside the work and home, I have only 83 "Friends" (acquaintances) on FB, this number probably reflects my lack of sociability.

Last night, I was browsing FB profiles of acquaintances I know, acquaintances with intensive to normal social lives, I noticed that all of them have FB "Friends" between 300 to 500.

So I was making a kind of correlation in my head and realized this : the more you know people,the more likely you'll have an active social life (friends, of hanging outs, of invitations...etc).

Don't you think this is usually true?

I think the reason dating is a numbers game is because people partner up exclusively (most of the time anyway). With social life, this isn't the case. You can have as many friends as you want. Being friends with someone doesn't take you off the friendship market so to speak. Dating someone on the other hand will generally take you off the dating market (unless you're in an open relationship like I am).

As for social people having a lot of friends compared to less social people, I don't find this surprising in any way. Social people are out there making friends much more often than less social people. Also, having more friends increases the number of opportunities to be introduced to new people (friends of friends).

well as my numbers are lower than yours, and more than half i dont see nor talk to nor have seen in almost 10 years, it is fair to say that those not as social will probably have lower numbers. but then again friend collecting is a popular trend of fb i mean cause really do you really know 1000 plus people, i think f*****g not. or will you ever f*****g know 1000 people in your entire life, okay perhaps when you are 75 years old. but most of them will be dead by then and we will be shooting our holographic selves into eachother's living rooms by then as the means for communication. believe it. but it is the norm to have 400 friends by the time you are out of college and they will stay with you til the day you log off and/or die. and here in a few days, is my first official birthday on the fb notices thing, so im kinda wondering how many people are going to take 2 seconds out of their awesome lives to send a "happy birthday" and then never talk to me again or see me again or write on my wall til my next birthday. in the end, i will probably not be so shocked to get many happy birthday wall messages and it will just further prove my point that all of those "friends" of mine would not f*****g notice nor care to know if i died or moved away or came down with a terminal illness. fb is such BS. and we are dumber because of it.

I have less than 50 FB friends, so you're almost doubly as social as me

I currently have 178 people on my FB. I am not a very social person. Most are actually family.

Neither dating nor socialization are numbers games. They defy quantification as a measure of their true value, which is probably why people with AS and autism have trouble with it. We're very good with systems, numbers, quantifying things. But human beings, relationships, and emotion are never exact or remotely predictable.

It's an art, and the ability to excel in that art will only truly improve with practice, and an acceptance that mistakes will always be made along the way.

Overall, no socializing is not a #s game. There are many aspects to socializing, and numbers is only 1 aspects. I think the your social life depends on what you want and what satisfies you and if attainable. It also depends heavily on the quality of friends vs. the quantity of friends. Heres the thing, if you know tons and tons of people, often times theres only so far you can take the friendship. I used to have a friend who tried to be friends with everyone. At the end of the day, she really cant, she looses track of people, she tries to connect with people she cant communicate with which sometimes leads to desructive friendships, etc. She goes overboard, she has trouble getting close to people because she doesnt have the time.

Does active "socializing" or social status have anything to do with a number of "friends" on facebook?

I don't want to get into a rant on why people talk s**t all the live long day about facebook but continue to participate in it like it's heroin or something. But that seems to be common, not just on here but with everyone I know.

Why? Why just not ditch it entirely? Personally I can't imagine anything worse than everyone you know and plenty you don't having a 24/7 window into my life. What is there to gain if you don't care reciprocally?

Fair, but it comes off on the surface (supplemented by the thread title too) that that's how it goes down sometimes... Mine was a rhetorical question, and point is, if facebook f***s things up for someone, why not ditch it as opposed to just complaining about it?

I never had a facebook so I never "reaped teh benefits" per se, I carry no weight on the issue but the fact remains I don't see where people benefit from it

Well, they say the average person has between 7 and 15 actual friends or 2-3 close friends.

I had 60-something FB friends last time I checked (most of them I have never been in contact with since). Real friends...well, it depends what a friend would be defined as. I have nobody who is really close, but I have 5+ who I see on a weekly basis or more and get on very well with.

In any case, I don't care for numbers. With friends, and with a lot of other things, it is the quality rather than quantity, I think. What's the point of befriending 500 people if they're going to either throw it back in your face, betray you, hardly speak again etc. I think even one friend who is willing to listen, understand, see you through bad times and vice versa, is more valuable than the aforementioned 500. Alas, I have never met a true friend my age yet.