Anyone who makes you choose between them and your friends is asking for a trade you’ll regret.

Closeness does not require shrinking your life. When somebody frames your other people as competition, the request underneath is usually not more love but less company, and a smaller world is easier to have the only say in. The trade also prices badly. You hand over the people who have known you for years in exchange for one person’s approval, which can be withdrawn.

Watch for the version that sounds reasonable: a joke about a friend, a reason this weekend is different, then the next one. You can care about someone and keep the rest of your life intact. If that sounds impossible with them, that is worth knowing early.