by Rower Girl

Created on: July 30, 2009

"A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world."~ Leo Buscaglia

To have a small group of friends is to not get lost in the crowd. To have a small group of friends means that it is possible to have a truly insightful relationship with each one.

As a rather "socially-phobic" person, I stand as a person with few friends... but those are good friends. With my small group of friends, I feel free to be myself, and to be completely and utterly honest. It is with these people that I put my heart and soul and total confidence within them. In large groups, someone can not always do this, because most of the people whom they consider to be "friends" are actually more "acquaintances" than anyone else. To me, it would be quite unnerving to think that in a large group of "friends", I might put my trust into the hands of an almost complete stranger without possibly ever realizing it. There is not a much more bone-chilling thought.

"The friend knows all about you, and still likes you."~ Elbert Hubbard

After exploring the topic of trust, there is now the topic of "keeping up appearances." With too many friends, how does a person keep up with who they, themselves, really are? Occasionally their true identity becomes "lost in translation" while they are trying to impress each "friend" in a different way. It seems that this cycle could get quite overwhelming with time.

Think about where this type of scenario plays out in modern culture. Practically everywhere, right? In reality tv, celebrity gossip, literature... even products; they all want to "dress to impress" without even taking into account if who or what they are portraying to others is really who they are.

Take "The Great Gatsby", for example. For those who have read the book: remember all those lavish parties he would hold, but where no one knew exactly who Mr. Gatsby was until they met him by surprise and realize how humble and shy he seemed to be, unlike the man of the stories told at the party? And how his real name was James Gatz and he came from a Missouri farm family: a far cry from the supposed Oxford graduate and millionaire? None of the hundreds of friends who came to his parties and told stories about his days as a Russian spy and such knew any of the REAL him.

All of my friends in my small group know the real me and I know the real them. No lie.

So, having a large group of friends may be right for some people, but not me. Next time you go out with a big group of friends, think about this: It's 5 PM. Do you know who your friends are?

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