Who's a Friend and How do they Become Friends?

I decided on a boring weekend afternoon to take a survey amongst my contacts database in Outlook. I looked back over exactly one year of new entries (July 2003 - July 2004). Copying the info and pasting it into an Excel file, I created a table and filled in more detailed information for each contact. This added information focused on their sex, how we met and whether or not we've become good friends.

Below are the results of the Excel spreadhseet. See the original for yourself here (I removed real names).

134 total new acuqantances, friends and contacts I made in the past year (as measured solely by those I created an Outlook contact record for).

53 are male (40%)
81 are female (60%)

22 met through existing friends (17%)
14 met through family members (10%)
38 met through various work positions and business networking (28.5%)
36 met through various hobbies and organization participations (comedy, trapeze, HOBY, birthright israel) (27%)
6 from completely outside my social circle whom I met legitimately and entirely on my own (4.5%)
18 "met" through online communities, social networks, responses to my blog, etc. (13%)
(the percentages should add up to 100)

The statistics are absolutely not comprehensive. I'm sure there are
plenty of people I care about who only exist on my cell phone's speed dial or buddy lists on various instant message accounts. The numbers also don't take into account "friends" in email discussion lists, some keepers of blogs that I frequently comments on, some frequent commentators to my blog and people I know in the "real world" whose email addresses I don't have an don't care to have. This may include the owner of a favorite bar, a friendly neighbor and others I am forgetting about.

However, for those that are included, some interesting realizations can be drawn:

22 have become actual, genuine friends that I care a great deal about (17%)
12 of the good friends are female
8 of the good friends were met through hobbies
6 were met through existing (i.e. met before July '03) good friends
1 was met on my own (the owner of my favorite sushi place in Tel Aviv)
1 was met online (we then met in person and really hit it off)
2 of them were met through family (one of these two is himself a
cousin)
4 of them were met through work
?? more may become good friends with the passage of more time

7 people (out of the total 134) I have never met in person (5.25%)
4 of these 7 I "met" online while the other 3 are from work

Pretty weird to think that of 18 people I met online, only 7 people I have not yet met in person. I thought both numbers would be much higher. Of course, the whole experiment is flawed, for the reasons I gave above. I'm sure I met more people online and that the percentage of those I never met in person is higher. Also, many people really do belong in more than one category and the definition of "friend" is subjective.

Of course the other limitation of all of these numbers is that I have nothing to compare them to. Does the above show me to be a social person? Are the numbers above or below average? And finally, what can I learn from the above to apply to my future relations with people?

I invite others to do the same survey of their contacts and see what emerges. Again, if you're curious to see my original data, here it is.