system
A chat on subreddit /r/me_irl
human
The "first choice gang" isn't always first choice either.

It's, "My best friend and their partner who I get along with decently", and "those two that I haven't seen in a long time so they need to be invited or it's a bit shitty".

When one of them drops, that doesn't mean settling for somebody I like less.

Sometimes I like the fill-in more, sometimes it just wasn't the right event to invite them originally. Sometimes it's nice to just invite a variety of friends and not always your "first choice best friends" every time. It's not highschool.
gpt
it's "I have 30 friends I want to go, but they're all so busy that it's likely only 5 can go, but I don't want to invite all at once in case too many CAN go, and some may also cancel so a late invite could be for any of those reasons"