"The Realest People Don't Have a lot of Friends" - Tupac

Tupac, the late American rapper said, "The realest people don't have a lot of friends."

Is this true? Lets have a look. As an introverted soul I would like to answer quickly and say yes. I believe that quieter people have fewer friends but good friends and friends for life while the more expressive people might say they have hundreds of friends but at best most of them are acquaintances only.

But does this make these people real?

All I can say about that is case by case.

The stereotype, in my mind anyway is that introvert have only a few friends but most are very, very close. While the extroverts has "hundreds" of friends and "thousands" of Facebook friends and someone that they meet only once is also their friend even if they struggle to remember their name or one fact about the other person. They are all "friends."

Does that sound about right?

Was Tupac correct about this quote?

Yes and no. Not all extroverts have boatloads of friends and not all introverts are Billy No Mates.

I think it all comes down to what your definition of friend is. In this post I said that the definition of friend for me anyway is someone who will help you out at 3am on a Tuesday morning in the middle of winter.

In that sense if you claim that you only have a small number of friends but they will all help you out on that Tuesday morning then you are real. You are legit.

If you say that you have thousands of friends, then in my mind you don't know what you are talking about and your definition of friends is way out. You are not fake, but I don't think you are real or living in reality.

If you can go through life with two or three very close friends, then I think you are doing very well.

The people with "thousands" of friends will disagree with me but if you really think about it you only two or three. Ask them for help at 3am. You will find out.

I suppose at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many friends you have as long as you are happy and you and them can give each other that mutual support as you navigate this life.

Now that is real!!!