Dunbar Number

150. That, according to British evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar, is approximately the maximum   number of meaningful relationships a human being can actively maintain. Dunbar proposed that as your number of active relationships goes beyond 150, you will begin to struggle to keep up. Sounds like a familiar feelings, doesn’t it!

The theory is that the neural connections in our brain just cannot handle more active social connections than that. The Dunbar number is derived by studying other social animals like chimpanzees, and co-relating the size of their brain with the size of their group or clan. So, brace up my friend, we are not too much further ahead that chimpanzees in the evolutionary game.

Dunbar also proposed that there are layers of social relationships. The number of connections in each of these layers decreases according to the rule of three. So, out of your total clan size of about 150, the second layer would have about 50 friends, the third about 15 and the fourth would have only 5 people.

Hence, while I can have a clan of upto 150, I would have only about 50 close relationships who I regularly meet and am updated with their lives. Of these 50, I would consider only about 15 relationships as my ‘inner circle’ of friends, who I know well enough to reveal some details about my life and we actually talk about each others challenges and goals. Finally, of those 15 only about 5 would be what I call as my emotional pillars. These are my ‘2am’ friends. People with whom I share my darkest moments and would expect them to stand by me at the drop of a hat.

I know what you are thinking. How can it be true? 150 seems to few. I had exactly the same apprehension.  After all I have 1316 friends on Linkend, 1692 on Facebook and 7303 contacts on my phone! So, I did what any diligent and logical person would try to do - I set out to disprove Dunbar’s number.

I sat for 3 hours and went through each and every contact on my phone. I tagged people who I think I would consider a part of my clan - with who I have active relationships. I included people with whom I have worked or spent substantial time with, people who I speak to or meet up with once every few months, even some people with whom I meet or speak on the phone 2 to 3 times a year, and even some people who I hardly am touch with, but would like to be much more connected.

What happened, I hear you asking? Out of my 7303 contacts, I came up with a list of 384. Of these I found that 93 were students who I am regularly in touch with. Since that is a part of a my work as a teacher, I put that in a separate bucket called 150 students.

Then, I sat to relook at my remaining 291 clan members. In this entire process the person who really had fun was my wife. She kept teasing me and asking me if Ive included her in my 150! The fact is, I applied the filter of ‘who are the people I consider as active friendships, who I relate with every now and then and we know some aspects of each others lives?’ In three to four rounds of filtering about 20 to 25 names that had been missed got added, but over a 100 more got dropped! It was painful but revealing! I’ve now ended up with 152. And, I'm sure that Ive missed a few and this number might go up to about 180 or so. In fact as I write this, I remember a name I had missed out! Gosh making this list is a dangerous game!

But, the truth is that professor Dunbar won. I realise that even these 153 (including the one person I just added), I am not doing relationship justice to. I should actually spending more of my energy nurturing and strengthening these connections. Even if I were to speak to these people once in two months, I would need to make about 2 to 3 phone calls every single day. Do I do that? No way? Even If I were to meet these people once in 6 months, I would need to meet one of them almost every single day? Haha, that totally not happening as of now.

Making this list has made some things very very clearly for me.

1. My relationship network, or my clan is one of the most powerful resources I have to live a happy, meaningful and productive life. It is also a huge source of knowledge, opportunities and support.
2. Instead of spreading my time too thin across too many connections, I am going to focus myself and create higher quality interaction with a limited set. I may certainly revise the list from time to time.
3. I have made a list of about 1200 people who will get a new year update from me about all that happening in my life, and my thoughts for the year ahead
4. I will have a printed list of my ‘clan’, and will make it a point to connect on a personal basis with at least a few of them every single day.
5. My next step is to identify my list of 50 close friendships, and work on them even more actively. But this is the topic for another post!

As I complete this podcast, I have to say that Professor Robin Dunbar has helped me identify my real friendships. More importantly I realise now that there aren’t as many of them as I had imagined, so I better make sure that I nurture the friendships I do have, properly!