But why should I put time into phone calls and the like? Most friends ask me to do things, which waste my time, and they don't do much in return and often won't do useful things when I ask them to.
The optimal number of friends when we were hunter gatherers might have been 150, but the optimal number of friends for a developer who gets asked to do work by a new person every week and contacted by a recruiter twice a day and doesn't have much use for any friends beyond graphics designers is probably much less.
It sounds like are questioning the value of loose work associates, I'm here defending the value of friends. Friends rarely ask me about doing work and I don't qualify my friends by their ability to do "useful" things for me. On the Venn diagram of friends/useful people I'd say there will be a lot of overlap but it most certainly shouldn't be a pre-requisite.
If you don't see any inherent value in having people to talk to, experience things with, and in general unwind with than you are either young and naive or a totally different animal than most of your fellow humans. In the latter case, feel free to disregard my message as it doesn't apply to you but if you are are in the former camp, I'd recommend you think long and hard about how you value people in your life.
The optimal number of friends when we were hunter gatherers might have been 150, but the optimal number of friends for a developer who gets asked to do work by a new person every week and contacted by a recruiter twice a day and doesn't have much use for any friends beyond graphics designers is probably much less.