150.

I just checked my Facebook Friends and a chill came over me as I discovered I had 150 friends in the side column. I know what you are thinking, how lame, only 150, no doubt you passed that number in the first week you set up your site and are now heading towards 1500 friends. I barely have time to call my Mother once a week let alone keep up lively discussions and banter with 150 of my closest friends, so how do you manage your numbers?

The above chill was caused by esteemed social anthropologist Robin Dunbar who was the first to comment on Facebook numbers when he indicated that 150 is the maximum number of friends you could have and still remember their names, their Birthdays and where they live. Actually he was talking about a time before Facebook showed up and he was talking about a "theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom you could maintain stable social relationships. Relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person."

Dunbar was talking about village and town life without technology attached. I don't know anyone who lives in a village nor a small town for that matter, yet I am a part of the Global Online Village but I don't think that's what he had in mind. Dunbar's number is about knowing people well enough to have them on your Christmas card list, inviting them to your big decade birthdays and maybe even to your second, third and fourth marriages. It's about knowing those people well enough, to not sit some of them together at those weddings because you understand their intertwined social patterns.

Even Facebook is saying the average number of "Friends" is approximately 150, so maybe Dunbar was onto something. Does this mean, this is it for me and the "Big F"? Does this mean I need to look for an alternative site to gather another 150 friends? What happens if I meet a new friend today and they ask me to send them a Facebook friend request? Can I fit them in? Maybe I could cull my friends list somehow? Let's see, who is off the Christmas card list.

Luckily I found research leading on from Dunbar by anthropologist H. Russell Bernard and Peter Killworth who have come up with an estimated mean number of ties for social engagement being 290 when taking into account today's technology. After all I don't have to remember everyone's Birthday or significant events as Facebook will do that for me. I can certainly read comments and likes for distance friends and relatives to be able to work out their foibles and food requirements should I need to invite them to the next wedding.

So I guess I can relax as I'm only half way to the optimum number of people I should know. Or should I be worried that I'm not gathering "Friends" at a fast enough pace and I'll never reach the 290 mark?

Anyone out there want to be my friend?