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Friendship Should Not Require a Perfect Attendance Record.
Chronic illness can make plans unreliable without making the friendship unimportant, but keeping the connection alive cannot become only one person’s job.
Friendship has a rewards program nobody admits exists. Attend often enough and the invitations keep coming. Cancel often enough and your account is quietly downgraded.
Nobody sends a notice. There is no email saying, ‘Due to repeated failure to appear, your social benefits have been reduced.’ The group chat simply becomes quieter. Plans happen a little farther from you. Eventually you learn about the dinner from a photograph posted by somebody who once told you they would always understand.