Its hard not to look at your Facebook friends and your contact lists and not feel as though you have way more people in your life that you dont know or care for. Its not a negative thing- unless you’re pooling for the sake of connecting people and appearing “popular”. But doesn’t life and the relationships that really matter feel cluttered because of this? It is not that the people on our phone or contact lists are horrible people who are bringing our self esteem and/or life down, but the chances are those relationships really have no substance. 
It becomes harder, yet again to distinguish who are “friends” and who are “acquaintances”. We might socialize with both. Invite them to parities or social gatherings and maybe even talk to them online every now and again, but how many can you actually say are close? How many will really make you feel great and encourage you to do great things? While there may be the obvious group of friends who are close to you among the unwashed mass of halfway close friends, there is usually a large group of “in-betweens” who are just not beneficial.
Perhaps it is fine to have many friendships that may not go anywhere in your life. And perhaps there is no harm in keeping in touch with people you don’t actually care about, or socializing with people who don’t interest you. But it is certainly true that there is a limited time to dedicate to friends, or however you want to define that term, and there is limited energy we have to dedicate to other people. While it is certainly exciting to have 50 people from Facebook attend your birthday party, it is definitely worth considering how many of those 50 people are truly your close friends. If you were going through a difficult moment, if you were even mildly inconvenient, how many of them would be there for you?
It may sound cruel and selfish but dont we owe it to ourselves to really take into account who is actually in our lives? There is no reason to be cold and aggressive about cutting people off or reducing their influence, but is it not an improvement to stop dedicating time and energy to people who don’t actually serve you right? To be honest with yourself about how many friends you actually have, and how many of them are actually just placeholders is difficult, but is it not worth it?
Surely we can have acquaintances. However there is no reason to have EVERYONE a close friend to you. It may feel good to have a social network that looks rich and flattering, but how much space should we rent to people who barely even know or notice they are renting space?
ADRIANIZMS 