Keep the friends who knew you before you were cool, or before you weren’t. They know the real one.

People who met you before anything happened have a baseline nobody else has. They saw the version with no reputation attached, good or bad, so they are not responding to the current arrangement of you, which makes them hard to perform for. They are the only ones who can tell when you are drifting from yourself.

Keep at least one of these on purpose, which means messaging first and going back when it would be easier not to. Ask one of them what you were like at twelve and take the answer seriously. These friendships end from neglect rather than from falling out.