I think my point is that you can look at friend-closeness as a spectrum, and there will naturally be more people on the less close end, and very few in the very

I think my point is that you can look at friend-closeness as a spectrum, and there will naturally be more people on the less close end, and very few in the very close end. But to jump from that insight, to a slogan like "most of your friends, aren't" is puritanism. Yes, it's important to be able to gauge the degree of closeness accurately (at least not be very wrong about someone being a close friend), but that's a bit of a different concern, imo. >> seems like a great way to convince yourself that you're an unlikeable person with no friends > I have no idea at all how you arrive here. :) Having many friends is generally considered important for general wellbeing, and is a social success-criterion. If you're telling yourself that all those people who enjoy being around you and that you enjoy being around (even if they might probably not be there for you in a deep crisis) aren't friends, that they're somehow fake, it's easy to get lost. At the very least, it's easy to rationalise not spending time with them. And you'll certainly never have a chance to convert any of them to "real" friends.