Confirming what most people have already known about their personal lives, researchers in the United Kingdom have determined that romantic relationships kill friendships. Robin Dunbar, head of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, had previously determined that the average person has five intimate friends, in the sense that they are people to whom a person can turn for emotional support…or money.

 

In the current study of 363 people who have romantic partners, Dunbar’s group found that a person who falls in love stands to lose an average of two of these five close friends as a result of spending too much time focused on his or her new lover. Dunbar also discovered that this tendency to place greater importance on romance over having friends is equally strong among men and women.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

The Price of Love? Losing Two of Your Closest Friends (by Ian Sample, Guardian)

Falling in Love Costs You Friends (by Jonathan Amos, BBC News)