Article from last year: A study one-sided friendships

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Tealeaf

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I was doing some late night, can't-fall-asleep-so-I-might-as-well-get up browsing when I came across this article:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/13/health/one-sided-friendships/

Basically, it talks about studies that were done where researchers examined how many participants named as their friends, then looked at how many of those people said the same. The results were 53% in one.

Do you think this reflects society as a whole? Are we really that bad at figuring out who likes us or not?
 
I think some people have a lot looser definition of who they consider friends than others. Maybe that has an impact.

I do have some trouble thinking people secretly despise me. It's not so bad when people openly do it. Also tend to consider people friends that probably dont consider me the same amount. Or maybe they do? I never know.
 
I learned the hard way that not everyone *I* thought as a friend thought of me the same. I admit I suffer from an inability to understand my value to others and vice versa. I do think humans are just really bad at this.
 
Surely it must depend on who you are asking. Some people see everyone as a potential friend. So yes I can see that there would be a fair amount of confusion, if you took 100 people out of a workplace and asked them to either tick or x friend or not? And how many of these answers would be political or game playing? Speaking for myself I don't think I'm too bad at working out who's a friend, but the truth comes with experience.
 
'Friend' is a term that might mean or imply something slightly different, depending on who you ask. That alone can potentially skew this kind of research (and it's conclusions) in an unwanted direction.
 

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