how meany friends do you really need?

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I only have like 2-3 friends at school and that's all I need the only problem is all the bullies at school. I just ignore them most of the time.

As long as I have at least 2 close friends I'm happy.

One close friend online.
One I hear from via SMS every few days or so.
Two I talk to on MSN once in a blue moon.

I'd say your friends can usually be counted on one hand. You can have some helpful acquaintances, though.

I was always taught "as many as you can count on ONE HAND."
I have 1 from Primary School, 1 from Highschool, and 3 from University. yes thats 5 and I am quite happy with these 5 really close friends.

My girlfriend, two guy friends, two classmates, and mostly acquittances.

What you need is a social life.

Adolescents (people our age) are supposed to hang around groups.

Who cares what adolescents are "supposed" to do? If he/she is happy with their friends, then why make changes? My philosophy is to be as normal as you need to be, and be as different as you can afford to be.

Unless you were giving a suggestion to avoid bullying, in which case my response is unnecessary.

I'm getting the slight impression that muslimmetalhead was being sarcastic.

Honestly, I'd be happy with just one close friend (everyone else could just be an acquaintance). Maybe two or three would be nice, but I'm not sure I could handle that as I'm very introverted.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to ever make close friendships. I do fine with making acquaintances.

I have none at the moment, and I'm fine with it. I would prefer to have one friend, but my criteria are very hard to meet.

Apart from my boyfriend, I have zero friends- only a few casual accquaintances with whom i can exchange a few words once in a while. All my highschool friends moved away. And now Im in uni and its difficult to make friends with people. In middle school and highschool everybody had to sit in class and you ended up interacting regularly with people around you, so you became kind of friends simply through proximity. Now in uni, everybody does their own thing, and I never get the chance to try to make any connection.
Having no friends kind of sucks, but to be honest it has made me much more self-reliant and confident. Without another people to fall on, you learn to deal with things by yourself.

None! They only bring me down and hinder me.

I'm a loner. I have a couple friends & I had more when I was working but I'm not close to them & I don't really want to be. I only want to maintain a close friendship with one person; my girlfriend

I dont need that many either, I love having people around to confide in, but in reality I could probably make due with 2

Growing up I only ever had between 1-3 close friends at any time.

About 7 years ago I became social with this HUGE group of goth/poly people in my area. I made a lot of friends, but I was never really sure if I actually counted any as close friends, even though I used the terminology to describe a few as such, but mostly because that was the social-emotional custom of this group. These people are so emotional-drama it has my head spinning. I've managed to royally screw some things up (I fit in well enough that it actually took me a while to really get "caught"), so now I'm pretty well ostracized from the group. I'm still working to pull myself away from everyone again. I will miss having so many people to hang out with, but I really need a break from all of that.

Now, I go to dinner a couple times a month with 2 close friends. I still have my 3 best friends that I actually rarely see but they fall under the friends-for-life (aka "family") category, and I still have my 4 roommates. As we're all gamers, our house tends to have guests pretty regularly for LAN gaming and RPGs, and we'll gather some "regulars" for going out to see a movie, and I like to have fondue and poker nights occasionally, but restricted to just a few guests (the poker table only seats 6 anyway). So far this is comfortable for me. I still run off into my bedroom and shut my door when I need to get away from people, but being a naturally outgoing introvert, I still need people time as much as I need me-time, and there's just enough people around to keep me busy but neither overwhelmed nor lonely. I do wish I had a boyfriend, though, as I feel lonely in that respect, but that's a whole separate issue from general friends and social interactions.