If you only hear from them when their plans fall through, you’re not a friend. You’re the backup charger.

Getting a message only once something else has fallen apart is a pattern, and it helps to see it as one rather than as a run of coincidences. It does not mean they dislike you. It means you are the fallback, which is a real position with real limits, and it does not upgrade itself over time. Most people in that spot keep waiting for it to.

You are allowed to be busy on a Friday somebody remembered you at eight o’clock. No explanation needed and no point to be made. Put your good evenings where you were the first call rather than the last.