How many people do you really have the bandwidth for?

Not the ones you follow. Not the ones you occasionally like or reply to.

The ones who get to know your truth - your shifting, evolving, present-tense self.

The flesh-and-bone human behind the title.

According to evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar, there’s a biological limit to how many meaningful relationships a human can hold at once. Around 150, to be exact. And within that, a tight inner circle of 5, 15, 50... each layer shaped by trust, time, and emotional closeness.

We’re not wired for infinite outreach. We’re wired for intimacy.

Because belonging was never meant to be a numbers game; it was meant to be an embodied experience.

In a world that glorifies reach and visibility, there’s something powerful about choosing depth instead.

This philosophy is woven into The Rooted Way - a conscious decision to invest in smaller, slower, more spacious ways of working and relating. Ways that honour our biology, our nervous systems, and our need to feel known.

What The Science Says

Dunbar’s Number isn’t a metaphor. It’s a measured, evidence-based reflection of how our brains — specifically the neocortex — process social information.

In his book Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships (Dunbar, 2021), Robin Dunbar explains that humans have evolved to maintain a layered set of relationships. These layers aren’t arbitrary. They’re strikingly consistent across cultures, contexts, even eras.

• 5: Your closest confidants - the people you turn to when things fall apart.

• 15: Good friends - trusted, regular connections.

• 50: Friends - those you’d invite to a significant celebration.

• 150: Meaningful relationships - people you recognise, trust, and could comfortably join in conversation.

Beyond that, the emotional connection thins. We might know thousands by name or handle. But true mutual awareness and emotional investment? That’s rare, and rightly so.

As Dunbar writes, “Friendship is not a big thing, it’s a million little things.”

That million-little-things cadence is what co-regulates us; it’s nervous-system safety in action.

Those things take time. Shared attention. Repeated moments of care.

The Trouble with Scale

Modern life nudges us toward growth at all costs. More clients. More followers. More collaborations. More circles to be part of.

But more isn’t always more.

If connection is stretched too thin, it becomes something else entirely - performance, perhaps. Politeness. Projection. It stops being nourishing.

When we override the natural limits of our relational capacity, we lose something: the safety that allows us to be fully human with one another.

This isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s fundamental to how we regulate our nervous systems, find meaning in our work, and remember we already belong.

The Rooted Way: A Different Choice

The Rooted Way isn’t a model for scaling. It’s a practice of returning - to what matters, to what holds, to what fits.

It’s about honouring your circles. Letting the right people in, and letting that be enough.

It invites us to build work and life not around maximum exposure, but around mutual nourishment. Around rhythms that leave space for silence, tenderness, reciprocity.

Because when connection is real — when it’s felt, not just seen — it can change everything.

And perhaps that’s the deeper invitation: to stop counting followers and start noticing who you call when life doesn’t go to plan.

Who hears the truth in your voice? Who do you trust with your questions, not just your answers?

Those are the people who matter.

That is the place to root.

Rooted Reflection

Consider visualising your own Dunbar Circles: five names in the centre, fifteen more just outside that core, then fifty, then the wider 150. Not to judge or categorise, but to notice. Who has your heartspace, and who are you consciously investing in?

This isn’t about exclusion. It’s about attention. We are finite creatures. And how we spend our attention shapes how connected — and how alive — we feel.

Connected Reading

This article is a companion to This Isn’t a Wellness Trend. It’s How We Used to Live - a reflection on space, trust, and shared humanness. If this resonated, you may find something settling in that one too. 👉 Read it here