My people

Here's my current model for deciding how to interact with people in my life.

Reasons to have people in your life:

Scarcity

Scarce resources include time, money and location.
Physical intimacy and regular emotional support are the most dependent on living in the same place as the other person.
Receiving and giving advice, and casual interactions require very little time commitment. So I can freely do this with many people. I want to be able to receive advice and causally interact with a wide variety of people.
I am wary of promising regular emotional / logistical / financial support to anyone.
I have promised emergency emotional and logistical support to a set of people I consider close. I'll provide a 6-month notice period if I ever want to break these commitments. I'm hoping most of these commitments last multiple decades. (If you're unsure if you're on this list, please message me and ask.) Even if I haven't promised you anything, feel free to ask me for help when you need it. I'm generally helpful, time and location permitting.
I am wary of promising emergency financial support to anyone. I have offered financial support before (loan or donation) and I am open to requests for the same. If you are asking me for financial support, it will help your case if you have:
- a good reputation verifiable by your social circle, and they are informed about the support you've received
- what a bank would consider credit-worthy, such as a source of income or collateral

Who?

I value novelty and ideological diversity. If I have a novel interaction with you, it is likely this means either you have deviated from social norms in some way, or you belong to a group whose social norms differ from the groups I have spent time in. If either of these is true about you, I am likely to find you interesting.
If we share topics of curiosity or similar ways of thinking on a day-to-day basis, then too I am likely to want to spend time interacting with you.
Getting into my inner circle (to receive significant support from mine) can usually be done by fitting into one of the above clusters plus having a significant number of shared experiences with me. There may be other ways to do it; I don't have a deep understanding of why I find people interesting or worth spending time with.