A relationship can grow through ordinary errands when special occasions are difficult to arrange.

Closeness is often imagined as an event that has to be scheduled, and scheduling is precisely what busy lives cannot manage. What actually builds a friendship is accumulated ordinary time: the drive to the hardware store, the wait at the clinic, the half hour folding something together. The occasion adds little that the errand does not already provide.

If a dinner keeps failing to happen, invite the person into something you have to do anyway. Ask them to come along for the shop or the walk to the post office, and let that be the whole plan.