The size of your circle isn't a score
Small, selective, or wide — what Dunbar's layers suggest about friend-group size, and what they don't.
The anthropologist Robin Dunbar studied how social groups are structured and found they tend to form in nested layers: a closest circle of around 5 people, widening to about 15, then 50, then 150, each ring looser and less intimate than the one inside it. People often call the outer number "Dunbar's number," but the layers are the more useful part. This quiz borrows that shape loosely: a Cozy Cocoon result points at someone living mostly in that inner 5, a Refined Inner Circle result points at a curated middle layer, and a Full-Bloom Butterfly result points at someone keeping several of the wider layers active at once. It's an analogy, not Dunbar's actual method. Six questions about invitations and group chats can't measure a social network the way years of fieldwork can.
Circle size isn't a ranking. A small circle isn't a lesser version of a big one, and a wide circle isn't proof of shallow friendships. Some people keep three friends for thirty years and call that a full life. Some people maintain five different friend groups and are close to all of them. The same person's number can also shift with the season: new city, new baby, new job, a breakup, a move home. A cocoon year doesn't erase a butterfly one, and the reverse is just as true.
What to do with it
If you got Cozy Cocoon, you don't owe anyone a bigger friend group just because wide looks more sociable from the outside. If you got Refined Inner Circle, saying no to most invitations isn't rudeness, it's how you keep the bond with the people you said yes to. If you got Full-Bloom Butterfly, the thing worth protecting is a day with nothing on it; five active circles can crowd out the rest you still need. None of the three needs fixing. They need the version of care that actually matches them.
Where it stops
This quiz describes a preference about circle shape, not loneliness or social anxiety. Wanting a small circle on purpose and feeling cut off against your will are two different things that can look similar from outside. If you feel isolated and didn't choose it, that's worth raising with a person you trust, not something a quiz result can sort out.