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--> --> Poll: How many close friends do you have? By Roger Simon WASHINGTON - I have never been called by a pollster, and I don't know anybody else who has, either. Based on that, I long ago decided that all polls are made up. I believe that three or four people sit around a table and just dream up the numbers. "What should we put for Bush's approval rating this week?" one pollster says. "How about 100 percent?" the second one says. "No, wait, wait, I've got it," says a third. "Let's make it 110 percent!" "Great idea!" says the first. "Can you actually have 110 percent approval?" asks the second. "We can do anything we want!" says the third. "We're pollsters!" All this comes to mind because of a new poll released Tuesday by Gallup, a highly respected polling organization that says it does not make up the numbers, but actually calls people (though it has never called me.) Gallup polls on all sorts of fascinating things. Back in March, they asked Americans what scares them the most. (This was before Sept. 11, of course, and so nobody answered terrorism or anthrax.) At the top of the list, and the only scary thing to get more than 50 percent of the response, was snakes. OK, that makes sense. Almost nobody likes snakes. But you know what came second? No, not being trapped in an elevator with Geraldo Rivera. Public speaking came in second. This surprised me. Part of my job involves giving speeches, and while I can understand how my audiences might be afraid ("Isn't he ever going to end?"), blathering in public has never scared me. The other fears in order were: heights, being closed in a small space (with or without Geraldo Rivera), spiders and insects, needles and getting shots, mice, flying on an airplane, dogs, thunder and lightning, crowds, going to the doctor and the dark. All those things make sense: Imagine being closed in a small space on an airplane at night during a thunderstorm as a doctor shoos away the snakes, spiders, mice and dogs so he can give you a shot. In any case, the latest Gallup poll released this week asked people an equally simple question: How many close friends do you have? Take a moment and ask yourself that same question: How many close friends do you have? Got that number in your head? OK, now here is the result of the Gallup poll: The average American has 9.5 close friends. To which I say: Baloney. I do not believe it. Nine point five close friends? I don't know the names of 9.5 people, let alone have that many close friends. So if you said you had less than 9.5, I believe you. If you said 9.5 or above, I think that you, like the people who responded to this poll, are lying through your teeth. To test my theory, I called up my closest friend. We have known each other since the second grade, since we both stuck a pin in our thumbs and declared that we were "blood brothers." We went to the same grammar school, high school and college. I was the best man at his wedding, and he was the best man at mine. A few years ago, on a rafting trip, he fell out of the raft, and I jumped in after him, dragging him to safety a mile downstream. So I called him and asked him how many close friends he had. "Define 'close friend,'" he said. Uh, somebody who, in an emergency, you would share your toothbrush with, I said. "In that case, my answer is that I have zero close friends," he said. Maybe that's too strict a definition, I said. How about somebody whom you deeply care about, see regularly if they live near you and talk to regularly if they don't? Somebody you can be yourself with and speak to without facade or phoniness. Somebody who trusts you, and somebody whom you trust. Somebody, in other words, who would jump out of raft to save you from drowning. "In that case, I'd say I have about 9.5 close friends," he said. I was astonished. Really? I said into the phone. You really have that many close friends. "Yes," he said. "Now let me ask you something." Go ahead, I said. "Who is this?" he said. "I don't think I recognize your name." Roger Simon is a syndicated columnist for the Baltimore Sun. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing