The appointment with a friend deserves space that work has not already exhausted.

A friendship tends to get whatever is left over. The evening lands after a full day, at the end of a week that took everything, and you arrive present in body and empty of attention. Nobody notices doing this, because the appointment was kept and keeping it looked like caring. What needed protecting was not the slot but the capacity to be inside it.

Put the next meeting with a friend somewhere your day has not already been spent, even if that means a weekend morning. Leave a gap before it rather than arriving straight from work.