We’ve learned to count almost everything — calories, steps, followers, likes — so naturally, we began counting friends. Somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, friendship became a metric. You could scroll, compare, and quietly panic: Am I normal?
The question sounds innocent enough. But behind it lies a complex psychology — part evolutionary design, part social anxiety. The truth is that friendship, once a survival instinct, is now a competitive sport. And the scoreboard isn’t emotional closeness anymore; it’s visibility. If a “normal” number of friends exists, who decided it? Anthropologists, algorithms, or the fear of eating lunch alone?