Dunbar’s Number and Angel Whispers

I think about my friends a lot. I think about former co-workers a lot. I think about family members a lot. And when I think about these people, my mind races with thoughts of, “I should text so-and-so,” or, “I wonder how the heck what’s-his-name is doing?” Sometimes I text right then and there. Sometimes I call and if I get a voicemail, I always leave a message and usually I say, “hey, old friend …nothing important and no need to call me back, but I was just thinking about you and wanted to call and say ‘hi’ . . . ”

And then I’ll tell them about some memory I have with them or say something I admire about them or just tell them why I thought of them, at all.

Years ago, I started to think of these random thoughts of random people as “whispers from Angels” …meaning, “random thoughts” aren’t random, at all. I theorize, if you have a “random thought” it’s because an Angel snuck up behind you and whispered into your ear a thought or a name, and the Angel expects you to do something.

Because I use my iPhone’s voice technology feature, my kids call me crazy. Actually, I think my daughter says I’m “psycho” every time I suggest, hey, give that person a (phone)call.

Am I crazy? Not for using the phone as a phone, but for calling (or texting) in the first place?

For a few months, I’ve called a former co-worker twice and texted once. I haven’t heard back. It makes me wonder one of two things … (a) is this person OK or (b) did this person never think of me as a friend nor someone worthy of keeping-in-touch with? Did I do something wrong? Was this person only pretending to talk with me about my family and tell me about her family in the spirit of “polite conversation,” but secretly, deep down, I was just sort of an annoyance? Should I avoid being interested in people in the future and just keep to myself?

Another former co-worker didn’t return my calls or texts for nearly a year, and when she finally did, we talked for an hour and I was heartbroken to hear about the year she had and immediately I realized, oh, of course calling old-friend-Don wasn’t a priority and nobody wants to call an old coworker-friend if there’s nothing positive and fun to talk about.

Maybe I do try too hard? Maybe those Angels aren’t whispering what I think they are. However, twice in my life, things happened to friends and both times, I thought about that person often and once, just hours before tragedy happened. I’m not suggesting that I could’ve changed anything by calling or that I’m so blessed that Angels talk to me and expect miracles, but I told myself, after those two things, I would never ignore an Angel whisper, again.

Or is it just Dunbar’s number that I’m ignoring? Dunbar’s number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of stable social relationships that a human can comfortably maintain. According to Gemini AI, when I asked, these are relationships where an individual knows who each person is and how they relate to one another. Proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar in the 1990s, the number is often cited as approximately 150. This figure was derived by examining the correlation between the neocortex size (the part of the brain associated with higher-level cognition) and social group size in primates. Dunbar extrapolated this relationship to humans, suggesting that our neocortex size limits the number of relationships we can effectively manage. Informally, Dunbar described this as “the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar.”

Maybe that’s my problem. I would walk over and talk with anyone I know if I saw them at a bar. And, worse, I’m happy when it happens to me and I would be sad if someone I know saw me at a bar and didn’t come say ‘hi.’

Here’s some more interesting Dunbar numbers as they relate to relationships and friendships. He says we have…

• Intimate friends (support clique): around 5 people
• Close friends (sympathy group): around 15 people
• Casual friends (affinity group): around 50 people
• Acquaintances (active network): around 150 people
• Larger circles of acquaintances (around 500) and people you can recognize (around 1500) also exist but represent weaker social ties.

Annually, I think I update my Dunbar number when I send out Christmas cards (we’re at about 125 cards). Recently, we’ve made invite lists for 3 graduation parties (our list was about 100ish, give or take). Yet, on Facebook, I have …gulp …927 “Friends”.  On LinkedIn, I have 1,506 “Connections”. Obviously I’m not that popular and don’t have that many friends.

Social media has impacted what we think our own realistic Dunbar number is. He proposed his number in the 1990s, right before social media started reconnecting us with “friends” and “connections” and acquaintances and old co-workers that, before social media, would’ve fallen deep, deep into the recesses of our minds or been forgotten entirely. Think about that. Before social media, our parents and grandparents would never have thought about anyone from high school or from old jobs unless they’d really had a true friendship.

I took some stock in my circles…

• Elementary school: zero people (because I went to a different h.s. and then moved away from my hometown to a new high school 200 miles away)
• High school: about 20 people
• College: about 40 people
• First Job Out of College: zero people (even though I invited 2 of them to my wedding back in 1997)
• Second Job Out of College: about 5 people
• Third Job Out of College: about 3 people
• Fourth Job: about 2 people
• Fifth (and Seventh) Job: about 13 people
• Sixth Job: 1 person
• My Kid’s Friend’s Parents: about 15 people

It proves Dunbar was mostly correct. If I total up all the friends from the eras and milestones of my life, then add it to my best friends, then add my immediate family and newer friends and cross-reference with my Christmas card invite list … it’s about 150.

Plus, studies suggest, including a study by the American Psychological Association, that friendships keep us healthy. Close friends and many friends (particularly high-quality friendships) reduced depression and anxiety and people with lots of friends live longer. Lack of friends and social isolation increase our risk for depression, anxiety, heart attack, stroke, and premature death.

And social media is not how to foster and develop high-quality friendships and relationships.

So, I’ll keep asking people to grab lunch, or a cuppa coffee, or meet for happy hour. I’ll invite people over to sit around my fire pit. I will work harder on my close, close (intimate) relationships. 

If I see you at a bar, I’m walking up to your table and talking to you and buying you a drink and if you see me, please walk up and say hi and have a drink.

For our health. 

And I’m definitely going to keep listening to Angel’s when they whisper to me. 

And finally, my newest thing, I’m putting music by whatever artist or song comes to mind when I post something on my Blog.