This made me think ... turns out that only half of anyone's friends actually like them back, and the other half is imagined friendships on your end.


When you call someone a friend, it goes without saying that they too consider you a friend - you like them, they like you, it’s a reciprocal thing. But a recent study has found that this is probably only true about 50 percent of the time - only half of perceived friendships are actually mutual, and that’s a problem. Led by researchers from MIT, the study analysed friendship ties in 84 subjects aged 23 to 38, who were taking part in a business management class.

The subjects were asked to rank how close they were with each person in the class on a scale of 0 to 5, where 0 means "I do not know this person," 3 means "Friend," and 5 means "One of my best friends." The researchers found that while 94 percent of the subjects expected their feelings to be reciprocated, only 53 percent of them actually were.


http://www.sciencealert.com/you-have...do-study-finds