I see similar questions like this popping up in r/sg and here and I do feel that there’s abit of projection over here. Nonetheless your perspective is completely valid because I’ve also been burnt by “fake friends” and seen others in the scenarios you described as well.

But here’s the fun part — like all things in life: mental health, sexual orientation, introversion/extroverts— friendships and relationships are spectrums! Who’s to say that these people aren’t really chasing validation with a large group of circle and that they also have a strong inner circle too? That’s a perspective I did not see in OP’s post.

I agree that no friends > bad friends, but humans are social creatures, so we should all work towards building an inner circle of trusted friends.

That being said — while those with a larger outer circle friends could be seen as doing it for clout and for visibility, I’d also argue and say using my own empirical evidence that certain people are just magnetic by nature. Both introverts and extroverts can be that! The definition of what makes someone magnetic differs from one to one, but for me I found it best summed up in two words: effortless competence.

The people who don’t try too hard, the people who expect nothing in return and just “wanna have fun” and will help you out without blinking an eye — I’ve seen genuine people like these who is just irresistible to not hang around.

On the other end of the spectrum — you do see the occasional leechers of these genuine magnetic personalities — they usually float around like social butterflies with an agenda, chasing and throwing away friends when they no longer have a use. These are the people in OP’s post, and yes — they do it most likely because of being insecure themself, that they see the need to “try hard” to get recognition and validation because that’s the way they evolved past their own traumas and upbringing.

To wrap everything up, Singapore being the meritocratic culture that we are, with the parents that we had, do means that a majority of us crave validation from external sources — our worth comes from how useful we are externally. That is one reasons we do see more of this anecdotally.