More choice, more freedom, right? If we’re talking options down the supermarket aisle, choices in peanut butter or spaghetti sauce, yes. I’m creamy for the former, chunky for the latter, and you? Malcolm Gladwell argues there is no perfect sauce, only perfect sauces because it’s a matter of taste, and people vary quite a lot. Choice opens up our world.

In matters of opinion, this applies to more meaningful choices, as well. People are generally freer and happier to have more choice in their hobbies and professions, for example. (Mostly) gone are the days that parents question their children, “law or medicine—which will it be?” 

But this mindset does have its limitations. More choice does not always equate to more freedom. If I handed my teenager her own credit card and declared “Be free!” I don’t expect that she’d be more liberated in five years than she is now. She’d likely be shackled to debt. 

So “more choice—more freedom” is limited in scope, to the extent it is applied. It’s also limited, I believe, in kind, in the very nature of the choice. Encouraging choice in what’s for lunch or what to do with the rest of one’s life, nurtures our inherent diversity. People flourish. The world is in color. But what about our choice of friends, when we as individuals choose not how to have our morning toast, but whom we want to be around? What then?

This experiment plays out 180 days of the year in large high school cafeterias. Maybe you’ve seen it. Though the reality is no High School Musical, it still mostly falls in line with what one would expect. People siphon off based on rather superficial matters: dress, extracurricular activities, social status. There is diversity on a grand scale, but amongst individuals, it is stifled—and at such a formative time in their lives, when social identity and cognitive control are under development, when pressure to yield to peer influence is at its height. Surely, diversity of thought is hampered by such groupings. And does not free thinking precede free living?

When it comes to choosing friends, less may be more as fewer choices breed deeper, more authentic connections, a cornerstone in living freely. In small communities, while cliques still happen, they themselves are smaller, as well as less homogenous and less influential. With fewer options, closer proximity, and more time spent with the same individuals, people inevitably relate to those who seem quite unlike themselves. They use conversation to find meaningful connections rather than using apparent connections as the grounds to start conversation. They share the wide range of their unique personalities including quirks, foibles, opinions, and values. This, in and of itself, is freeing. Individuals can be themselves. Not only this, they can spend some time alone, something significantly harder to do in large crowds. Time to reflect, grow, and pursue individual interests—time to think, free from persuasion.

Conversely, small communities can sometimes create a bubble, insulating certain views and excluding others from conversation rather than letting ideas stand or fall on their own merit. However, while it is inhibitive to be overly selective in choosing individuals with whom we spend our time, it is perfectly reasonable to choose where we spend it, in what general community we place ourselves and our children. In other words, better to make a value-based choice of a community and befriend whomever is a part of it, than to hand-select “our people” based on appearances and assumptions. So long as a core value of the community is freedom of thought, a small community can be the perfect place for free discourse, exchange of ideas, individual growth, and, yes, friendships. Ironically, fewer choices in friends may just open up greater choices in life.