Do Women have more friends than Men?

I recently had to figure out whether men or women have more friends in general. My personal bias is that the average woman has more friends than the average man, but lets have a look at what the research shows:

I came across an interesting phenomenon on why your friends have more friends than you do. The gist of the analysis is that you are more likely to be friends with someone who has more friends than with someone who has fewer friends. To rephrase that, you probably have, in your social circle, someone who has a lot of friends (a connector) who is tipping the mean number of friends that the average person has. But that doesn't really answer our question. The connector could be a male or female...but which is more likely?

The advent of online networks has made such research possible. Based on studies done on online social networks, there is a higher likelihood for a connector to be female. Also Women who are "social networkers" also tend to have more friends than their male counterparts. Interestingly, when it came to the extreme end of friend-making, ie a huge number of friends(1000-10000++), there were more men (Super/uber connnectors) who had these networks of friends than ladies. But these guys were a rarity, constituting less than 1% of the sample set.

Why do women appear to be have more friends?

Part of the reason could because of biology. In stressful situations, the fight or flight response is triggered in males. Women have a larger repertoire of behaviours, and the research is showing that a female response to stress is to gather with other women instead, whereas in men it would be to seek isolation. You can read the paper here. Women with social networks that are heavily female populated tend to live longer as well. (Women tend to give better care than men)

Women also gather with other women for safety. Interestingly, the research also highlights that when a woman is given the chance of support from an unfamiliar male or being by her herself, she would prefer to be by herself. (Men are seen as a potential source of danger, eg spousal abuse etc.). 

Thanks for pointing this out. But how is this useful to me...?

Well, for one, if you are planning to grow the number of friends you have, you are better off befriending women than men, since they have on average more friends that they can introduce to you than the average male.

Another interesting result of women having more friends is that they can cope romantic relationships better. Simon and Barett show that:

Young men are more reactive to the quality of ongoing relationships because romantic partners are their primary sources of intimacy, in contrast to young women who tend to have intimate relationships with family and friends. 

Young men also feel more of the emotional strain in a relationship because they invest more in a relationship and are less familiar with navigating romantic relationships. In the Aura Academy, we are taught to control investment levels (the ladies as well as our own), so a lot of this social arts stuff has very practical as well as emotional value.


Just good to know:)


XXX, 
Echelon


Singapore Dating Academy: AURA

Reflections on the Ambassador Graduation Infield requirement

To pass the ambassador graduation infield, I was required to bring 8 girls to rockstar night. 8 girls is a challenge because, for one, you never see girls hang out in groups of 8. 8 is too large and simply not a sustainable group size, and even less so if they are all girls.

My strategy for bringing 8 girls with me for rockstar night was twofold:
(1) Invite many girls
(2) Set integration/management on rockstar night itself

To determine how many girls to invite, I had to estimate the flake rate that I would encounter. Based on my experience from the acolyte infield, I estimated that for every 3 girls I invite, 1 girl would turn up(33%). Metrics like that are useful because they helped me decide how many girls I needed to meet and invite for rockstar night. Since I needed to bring 8 girls for rockstar night, I needed to invite 24 girls. Once I figured that out, it was a question of scheduling my time to hit the clubs. When I was planning this I had 3 weeks to rockstar night, so I needed to number close at least 8 girls a week. If I hit the clubs twice a week, that's not so difficult. I just need to get 4 numbers in a night.

I tried this and it worked out pretty well. Soon I had a list of numbers and I invited them for rockstar night. My estimate was quite accurate, and I had narrowed it down to 8 solid RSVPs.

Then the F1 came to town and David changed the date for rockstar night. I found out about it just 4 days before the actual night. This was bad. I informed my girls about it, and the reaction wasn't good. In an instant, half my contact list couldn't make it. They would be out of town. The rest of the list had already flaked. I needed to start over, and I had a week to do so.

So I hit Attica twice, and number closed like a whirlwind. I even number closed a girl on the train on the way to Clarke quay. I was pretty stressed, and girls can be so unpredictable. I pulled one of the girls I had met from Attica and we made out all the way to her place. Two days later she tells me not to text her anymore. Such is the nature of a woman. You don't ask why they are like that, you accept their nature and you try to work with them.

On Wednesday, 3 days before rockstar night, I sent an invite text and RSVP. Rockstar night was promoted as a friend's birthday, and they were invited to join in the fun. David teaches in the ambassador level promoter class that the best time to invite people for a party is 24-48 hours before the actual event. I was actually a bit early, but I needed to know. If the response was bad, I could at least get some more numbers at Butterfactory in the evening on ladies night.

The response was eerily silent. Most didn't reply. Some replied saying that they couldn't make it. Only 3 could make it. I think, at this point, everyone was suffering post F1 party week fatigue. Or maybe the event itself was not compelling (who wants to go for a birthday party when they don't know the birthday guy?). In any case, the response was really bad.

Over the next few days, the replies slowly came in. I had 14 "maybes". The common response was "I don't know what i'm doing on Saturday. I check with my friends and get back to you?" Maybes are never good because they will most likely flake. What I've also found is that a "yes, i'm coming" doesn't actually mean they'll come, especially if they promise you a week in advance. The earlier they promise you, the greater the need to confirm it later.

On Saturday itself, I only had 5 confirmed and 8 maybes. This wasn't good enough, because if half of them flaked i wouldn't hit 8. With great reluctance, I invited one of my close girlfriends from school, and persuaded her to invite 2 of our mutual friends along. I didn't want to touch my professional contacts, but I saw no other way. Thankfully, the three of them came, and they came early. We even had dinner before going to Attica. None of them flaked. This was when it hit me:

My flakes were so high because I didn't really know the girls I was inviting, and they didn't know me. This task would be a lot easier if I had a social circle, and my close friends were my social circle.

It was also a mistake to invite a girl and ask them to bring their friends along. Soul had been doing this and so was I. There were two problems with this approach:

1) She doesn't feel like you are inviting her because she's special. In fact, she feels that you are using her to get to know her friends. ("invite my girlfriends? But they are all attached.")

2) It's not always easy for girls to bring along a few of their friends. When their friends don't want to go, they won't go as well. It takes work to bring their friends along, and
why should they work so hard to bring their friends along for you?


If I were to do it all over again, I would invite a core group of girls who are all friends and see how I can grow the group by inviting more mutual girlfriends. That would be much easier.


The night itself


When the first 8 showed up at attica, I had a different set of problems.

The first problem was how to get them in without paying the cover charge. I staggered their arrival to make use of the citibank card promotion to get them in for free (before 11pm).

But there were others that arrived after 11pm. This is where it helps to know the bouncers and door people. There are several tricks that i use at Attica:

1) You can plead with the door host (Bara) if you see her to let you in.
2) There is a bartender named Ben who's name you can drop. Tell the bouncer that you are Ben's friend. This hardly works and what you might get is Bara coming to greet you.
3) Make a strong entrance. If you are with girls, you lead first with the stamp on your hand and just pull them along. The bouncers may check for the stamp on the girls but once they make some noise they'll usually be let in.
4) If you are with just 1 girl, hold her hand and lead her through the entrance. They'll usually let you in. If you are stopped, tell the bouncer that she is your girlfriend, and don't let go of her hand. The bouncers will usually relent.

It also helps that you know the door people if you are a regular there. One guy I know buys food for the bouncers to build rapport with them. Others are just seen there often.

The second problem I faced was keeping track of everyone once they were in the club. I was chatting with an Aura member about this and he said "Why not just let them run free in the club?". What he didn't understand is that girls don't answer their phones in the club sometimes, for a variety of reasons. If I don't know where they are, and let them run free, I won't be able to find them later to bring them to David. My greatest concern was that with a group of 8 girls, guys will come in and pull them away. If they leave the club with my girls before I introduce them to David, then all that effort would be wasted.

As I mentioned before, 8 is not a sustainable group size, and so the group naturally fragmented at the smoking area where we were gathered. Some of my "maybes" showed up and I was pleasantly surprised, even though some came with a guy. In total, my count for the night was 12 girls and 2 guys. I had passed the infield.

That was a lot of hard work man.



XXX,
Echelon


Singapore Dating Academy: AURA