If an adult tells you they have between 20-30 close friends…

[Nosleepforthismum]

AIBU to think wtf and how can that be true?? I even asked if some were more acquaintances but no, insisted that all 20/30 of them are really close and talk all the time.

Guy in question is 25 with no kids but even so, it must be bullshit surely? How many close friends do you all have? I have three at the grand age of 33 and I figured that was pretty good going!

YANBU - clearly a liar liar pants on fire type of bloke. No one has that many friends once you’ve left school.

YABU - 30 friends is very normal in your 20’s.

I do think people have different interpretation of close friend. Like my sports team, we meet several times a week and have nights out, text funny memes and thoughta. I wouldn't necessarily even describe them as friends. I know if I was to quit the team, I wouldn't see 90% of them again. Same with my other hobby group. Same with some colleagues. We have lunch every day, speak about personal stuff all the time, have cried due to personal problems. But I'm pretty sure when I change jobs I'll only ever see one of them. So wouldn't categorise these people as close friends.

He doesn't understand what a close friend is.

Or maybe you don't @Stompythedinosaur ?

Or, most likely, people just have different meaning of what they would class as a close friend.

My ds is very much like the way @caringcarer describes her ds at the bottom of P2. He is in his 20s and easily has 30 friends that I would consider to be close to him. I guess it is similar for me. I have friends from all sorts of places and different aspects of my life. Including (as seems to shock some on MN) friends who are men, and friends who are different ages from me - both older and younger.

I suspect women regard people as a close if they can talk to them at 2 in the morning because they need to talk, whereas a bloke would regard someone as a close friend if they have regular lads nights out, in which case 20-30 seems pretty normal.

Possibly but it’s all down to circumstance. It’s easy to have lots of friends when young and child free , once kids come along you really do see who’s really there for you and who isn’t. Some of my “friends” dropped me like a hot potato when I could no longer do what I used to!

Depends on your definition and stage of life, I think - in my early 40s, I have probably five close 'help you bury the body'-type friends, a wider immediate circle of people I see and talk to regularly of about 15-20, then a much broader network of 'good acquaintances' of maybe about 30-50 people. I'm close to my family (siblings and cousins) too.

However, when I was 25, then yes, I think I probably did have a similar circle and, as they all played roughly the same role at the time and there wasn't as much compartmentalising in my own life, it made sense to just count them together.

I have ten that I know I can count on in crisis. Then other 4/6 that I meet once or twice a year. I guess that's a lot. I do make the effort though and am a good organiser

I also have 3. I have groups of friends who are former school mates and former work colleagues. I go out with them and have been on weekends away with them, but they are not what I would consider my close friends.
My 3 I’ve found on my path of life and I think they are brilliant and I love them. I would put myself out for them and vice versa. We are driven by the same core values, very different people, but have an intrinsic connection.
My other friends are lovely, but have become friends through circumstance and had we not been at school or work together, I don’t believe that the friendships would have grown the way my close friendships have.
Also, I think these groups inevitably have one or two people in, who you aren’t keen on, or would have drifted into acquaintance land, but because the group is maintained, you stay more connected with them than you would otherwise.
As with so many things in life, the quantity doesn’t matter, it’s the quality.

Should also say I’ve had others who I’ve considered close, but once I discovered I was putting in all the effort of maintaining contact and stopped, so did the friendships. I’ve also had some who have been close (couple friends) but I was dropped when relationships broke down.
Some dropper me like a stone too once I had kids, one I was really surprised at because I was bridesmaids for her.
Looking back I guess they weren’t the friendships I thought they were.

I wouldn't want that many 'close' friends but people define it differently.

Other people have considered me a close friend before when there's absolutely no way we were more than casual drinking buddies as far as I was concerned.

They were pretty shallow though, so for them that really was a 'close friend'.