Sublime

the vast bulk of people list somewhere between about 150 and 250 friends, and, second, there is a long tail to the right with a very small number of people having a very large number of friends.

being an involved dad creates a “dad brain” that replaces his single-man desires. He’ll experience a decrease in the testosterone previously used in the hunt for sex and recovery after rejection, and an increase in oxytocin emanating from the joys of loving and being loved by an infant who needs him.

One is that women typically make a very early decision on which male to go for and they stick with it, constantly contacting him until even the dullest male finally realises and caves in. It looks like it takes the male around five years to wake up – or, at least, respond reciprocally – to this.

The reason Dr. Schwartz examines family history so carefully is that he sees family background as fundamental to a person’s outlook on career.

My take on this is that the process of making a new friend follows a fairly set pattern.

Of the many emerging descriptions of our social brain, for me the simplest and most elegant is the highly regarded Social Baseline Theory of Lane Beckes and James A. Coan, two researchers at the University of Virginia.

two sexes effectively live in two very different social worlds.

Again, there are slight differences between the sexes in the layers (women consistently tend to have more ‘5-layer’ friends than men), and both inner layers tend to increase initially with age and then decline.