Spend a weekend alone and notice who you wanted to text first. That’s a clue about who matters.

Your instincts rank people more honestly than your opinions do. Ask who your closest friends are and you produce a list shaped by history and who you sit with. Go quiet for two days and whoever you want to tell something to is the real answer, which is sometimes not the person at the top of the official list.

Pay attention to that first impulse rather than overruling it. Then do something with it, which mostly means telling that person they matter in plain language. Friendships work like practice, in that the ones you give time to are the ones that keep working.