Anyone will come to the party. Real friends show up when you’re carrying a couch up three flights of stairs.

Pleasant company is easy to find and costs nothing on a good night. The test is inconvenience: a move, a lift at an awkward hour, a hospital car park at the wrong end of a week. Few people fail that test out of malice; most were simply never that kind of friend, and only an inconvenient day tells you which is which.

Notice who turns up for the boring, effortful things and give those people your time. Then make sure you are somebody else’s couch-carrier, since that list gets built by being on it rather than by wanting to be.