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by peterldowns 408 days ago
> “The average American I think has, it’s fewer than three friends, three people they’d consider friends, and the average person has demand for meaningfully more, I think it’s like 15 friends,” he said in the interview with podcaster Dwarkesh Patel.

Is this true? I don't believe this AT ALL. No way that the average American would say they only have 3 friends, that's beyond low.
2 comments
chneu 408 days ago
Nah that seems about right.

If you remove family and online interactions, I'd wager most white men under the age of 40 who aren't married have less than 3 friends.

I'd also wager that most single women under the age of 40 have less than 5 friends.

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peterldowns 407 days ago
Huh, interesting, do you have any links I could read for more info? This is really surprising to me. And out of curiosity, what does being white have to do with it?
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chneu 401 days ago
I believe the latest episode of the "Modern Love" podcast is kind of about this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/podcasts/why-boys-and-men...

I don't have any more links off hand, but I don't think this is a "new" thing as I've seen it discussed quite a lot over the years. Things such as "Why do white men kill themselves so much more than other groups?"

I don't want to get into the whole "white men's problems are more important than other groups problems" because it's very sensitive and that isn't the point I was making.

There are a ton of reasons why this seems to afflict white men a bit more and I don't know which of them are more valid than others. Whether the idea that it affects white men more is probably contentious in itself. That's not the point.

I'm not claiming I'm right or that it's a serious issue. It's just an interesting topic that probably has a billion factors contributing. It's interesting to think about and can be eye opening to what other people are going through.

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dewarrn1 408 days ago
It's not my area of expertise, but I have seen other estimates that American adults, especially men, are likely to have and report numbers of friends such that the median is in the single digits.
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