Can you have more than 150 friends? 11 May, 2021 10:29 PM 5 minutes to read Scientists are debating how many friendships one person can maintain. Photo / 123RF New York Times By: Jenny Gross A new study questions that figure, known as Dunbar's number. The Oxford professor for whom it is named, Robin Dunbar, dismissed the findings as "absolutely bonkers." Just how many friends can one person have? In a 1993 study, Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, theorised that humans could have no more than about 150 meaningful relationships, a measure that became known as Dunbar's number. But researchers at Stockholm University published a paper last week calling that number into question, finding that people could have far more friends if they put in the effort.