Life is meaningless without friends. Social beings like us cannot survive without human interactions. How did you make friends? Have you given it a thought? If you’re the gregarious type, you might just give me a puzzled look, or say, “How? Friendship just happens.“

Nonetheless, for eggheads such as Sheldon Cooper (BBT) and Charlie Eppes (Numb3rs), a structure as complex as friendship couldn’t just happen out of rough sketches. Sheldon devised the “Friendship Algorithm” while Charlie wrote a manual on “The Mathematics of Friendship”. Tease out their well-constructed models by watching Episode 13 of Big Bang Theory Season 2 as well as Episode 1 of Numb3rs Season 4. If I could speak to both of them, I’d probably…

SAY: Friendship is characterized by mutual caring, intimacy and shared activity. A strong conception of intimacy in terms of shared values, deliberation, and thought, provides within friendship a central place not just to isolated shared activities but, more significantly, to a shared life.

ASK: Three Questions About Friendship: (1) Why should I invest considerable time, energy, and resources in a friend rather than in myself? (2) What makes friendship worthwhile for me? (3) How should I evaluate whether particular friendships I have are good friendships or not?

Nota bene: Mathematics is the king of arts & the queen of all sciences. Do you think the better title for this post is “Friendship’s Math”?