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Personal Circles
Community by the Numbers: Personal Circles — Christopher Allen explains the different types of relationships in our life and the maximum of each type the average person can maintain. Obviously there’s variance in these numbers depending on the person.
- Support Circle - People you turn to in moments of severe emotional or financial distress: 3-5
- Sympathy Circle - People you turn to for sympathy and people whose death would be devastating to you:10-15
- Trust Circle - People you have emotional closeness to, people you would send a Christmas card to: ~150
- Emotional Circle - People you “like” and can have a non-mutual emotional connection to (weak ties):~300
- Familiar Strangers - People whose faces you recognize but you know nothing about them: 1000+? (No clear studies on # of people we can recognize.)
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