There’s a weird kind of loneliness that shows up even when your phone won’t shut up. You have group chats. You go to work. You go to events. You reply to memes. But when something real happens—like, actually real—you can’t think of a single person to text who won’t make it weirder.
That’s not just a you problem. According to new research from News Corp’s Growth Distillery and Medibank, the number of people we can count on has a direct connection to how mentally well we feel. The difference between people with high well-being and people struggling? About two friends.
The study found that people who report good mental health typically have five people they can rely on. Those with poorer mental health have just over three. And that gap—small as it sounds—is the crack where things start to break. It’s the space between “I’m overwhelmed, but I’ve got support” and “I don’t want to burden anyone.”
How Many Close Friends Do You Actually Need?
A lot of us have gotten good at doing everything right on paper: we show up, we smile, we’re funny and helpful and down to hang. But we keep the real stuff locked up. Sometimes we don’t want to look weak. Sometimes we’ve just forgotten how to have a real conversation. Either way, it creates a whole population of people who look fine and feel completely alone.
The report also found that nearly half of Australians don’t feel confident talking about mental health—even when someone else opens up first. Not because they don’t care, but because they don’t know what to say. So we keep things surface-level. We joke about burnout. We call it “being busy.” And the space between us grows.
But connection isn’t a luxury. It’s not an extra. It’s the thing that keeps us standing when life falls apart. And building that kind of friendship doesn’t take a TED Talk or a perfect support circle—it takes one person willing to say, “Hey, I’m not great today.”
You don’t need a new app. You don’t need a therapist in your friend group. You just need someone who’ll actually pick up when you call—and who knows you’d do the same.
Five people. That’s the number. And even if you’re starting from zero, that’s something you can build. One real conversation at a time.