A mistake in front of friends can become safe evidence that the friendship includes imperfection.

Friendship is mostly untested until something goes slightly wrong in front of it. Dropping a dish, forgetting a name, saying the clumsy thing: each is a small experiment whose result you learn immediately from how the room responds. When nothing bad happens, the friendship becomes usable in a way it was not before, because you now have evidence rather than hope.

Let a small failure stand next time instead of apologising it away. Notice who laughs with you and who lets it pass. Those responses tell you more about a friendship than any number of evenings where everything went smoothly.