Just how many friends can you handle?

Before we delve into just how many friends we can argue that anyone can handle, we perhaps need to ensure that we are on the same page with respect to our understanding of the word, ‘friend’, or the equivalent rendition, ‘friendship’.

What then is a Friend, or what exactly constitutes Friendship? Is a friend someone who simply delights in spending time with you? Or is a friend someone with whom you share the innermost secrets of your soul? Or perhaps yet, a friend is someone who is there for you whenever you need some emotional or moral support?

If someone spends time with you, loves to laugh with you, but yet, after several years, you really know nothing about essence of this person, clearly, such a person has yet to become your friend, merely is a person who delights in your companionship.

By the same token, if a person who delights in spending time with you does not exhibit any desire to get to know you as a person, clearly, there is delight in companionship — conversation and activities — but as yet no desire for arrival at friendship.

One of the travails of marriage in modern society is that women marry men who only delight in their companionship — men who do not have any desire to get to know the person that is the woman, men who only delight in the escapism of which the woman is representative…