Q3 Friendship Quarterly Report

Prepare a quarterly report on the friendship and mail it to your friend. Stakeholder-grade: executive summary, key performance indicators, headwinds, outlook. Bound, paginated, printed on paper heavy enough to say this isn't going away.

The numbers are the whole thing, and they're specific:

• Hangouts proposed: eleven. Realized: three. Conversion down to 27% from 41% in Q2.
• Median text response latency: nine hours, up from six. One four-day outlier excluded from the average.
• Instances of "we'll figure something out": seven. Things figured out: zero.
• Unprompted check-in texts received: one, on June 4.

Report that last one warmly — it beat projections and was, frankly, the high point of the quarter. Attribute the softness elsewhere to scheduling pressure, and reaffirm your long-term commitment to the position: no plans to divest, near-term guidance revised to "definitely this month."

Close with the boilerplate the document prints at the bottom:

This report contains forward-looking statements, including "definitely this month." Actual results may differ materially.

They'll recognize every figure. That's the part that gets them — not that you kept count, but that the count is right, and that the one good number is the one you led with.