The more friends you have, the more you earn, says a study. But modern life can allow little time to maintain meaningful relationships, so what's the optimum number of friends?
A study of 10,000 US students over a period of 35 years suggests the wealthiest people are those that had the most friends at school. Each extra schoolfriend added 2% to the salary. The researchers said this was because the workplace is a social setting and those with the best social skills prosper in management and teamwork.
The average number of friends is about 150, says leading anthropologist Robin Dunbar. "It's the number of people that you know as persons and you know how they fit into your social world and they know how you fit into theirs." They usually consist of an inner circle of five "core" people and an additional layer of 10, he says.

Friendships help us to develop as people, says Mark Vernon, author of The Philosophy of Friendship, but the very term "friend" covers a whole range of relationships. You have a very close friendship with your partner but with others it may just be a common interest or history or simply children the same age. "Aristotle said friends must have eaten salt together and what he meant is there's a sense that people have lived a significant part of their life together."
There's a limit to how many close friends like this you can have and it's probably between six and 12, somebody says.
A newspaper columnist once told of her shock when, having struck up a rapport with a man over dinner, she was told at the end of the meal he had no vacancies for friends. He was operating a "one-in, one-out" policy. Six months later she received a card stating he was now available for friendship. That's an extreme example but many people view their friendships scientifically and regulate them accordingly.
Julie, a 34-year-old PR consultant in London, says she has three categories of friends. Firstly there are nine close friends - the Premier League - whom she could ring any time of day or night and they would drop everything and come if necessary. "I try to see them every few weeks and speak at least once a fortnight." Julie's next social group has about 20 people, mostly men, whom she would see every couple of months, then there are more than 100 people beyond that on the outer fringes - friends from work, friends from her last job and friends from traveling.
There is a perception that as society has become more mobile, and traditional family bonds have loosened, friendships have become more fleeting. But on the other hand, modern technology has meant we can stay in touch with more people than ever.
"First email, then mobile, and now social networking sites like Facebook have made it much easier for people to grow their circle of friends beyond their immediate inner circle," says digital media expert Dan Clays of BLM Quantum.
Ask yourself about the quality of your friendships, not about the quantity.

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