Friendship Health Checker

Reflect on the quality and variety of your friendships with a simple structured checklist.

How many close friends do you have (confide in freely)?

How often do you see or speak to a good friend?

Do you have a friend you can call in a genuine crisis?

Do you make the effort to maintain friendships?

Do you have friends from different areas of life?

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Fill in the details to get your result.

How This Works

Based on social psychology research on friendship quality indicators: Dunbar's number suggests humans can maintain ~150 acquaintances, ~50 friends, ~15 close friends, and ~5 intimate confidants. Research by Robin Dunbar and Beverley Fehr identifies regularity of contact, mutual disclosure, and crisis support as the three most reliable predictors of friendship quality and durability.

Adult friendships require more intentional effort than childhood ones (which form through proximity and repetition). Evidence-based approaches: (1) Repeated unplanned interaction — sports teams, regular classes, clubs provide this naturally. (2) Propinquity effect — people who encounter each other frequently develop positive feelings. (3) Vulnerability — small, progressive self-disclosure deepens relationships faster than surface conversation. The single best predictor of friendship: showing up consistently over time.