This doesn't answer the question we're all wondering..
If you are successful and established, friendship often means obligation. Money, skill, resources and effort are requested, sometimes politely, sometimes not.
If you are not successful and established, finding someone to engage in this relationship can provide significant advantage.
Some might say "a real friend would not ask such things, what you speak of are fairweather friends."
I would reply, "have you ever found your perfect equal in a friendship?"
I haven't.
In my experience, if you somehow keep some of your close friends that you had early in life, some of them end up eerily similar to you late in life.
All of our behaviors were ruthlessly selected by evolution in the 60k years since we emerged as a species.
The behaviors were never about the individual. We kept them because they reproduced.
> I would reply, "have you ever found your perfect equal in a friendship?"
I guess the point of friendships is to find people with whom the exchange is fair. As in, I have something they want, they have something I want, we exchange this.
The transactional relationship is a different thing, it is a business relationship. You don't have to be a friend with someone you exchange things with.
Actually one Dunbar number of gorillas vs one Dunbar number of humans could be a good spin on this meme.
Tanks are typically crewed of course… but in theory, a guy could patiently go around and man every station… I wonder if 100 sufficiently motivated gorillas could damage a tank from the outside.
Which would make it a lot harder.