Barry, we, too, saw our friends mostly for meals and parties, when John could no longer swallow, socializing with them became a bit of a problem. Then I read somewhere, maybe on this forum, that a way to deal with this was to move the focus for socializing away from food to other things. Instead of meeting for a meal, for example, we could meet and watch a movie on tv together, for example. People may still want to have popcorn while watching the movie, but John didn’t have to partake. I tried that with some success. I was very open about shifting the focus. I didn’t hint, I just said we had to try do something else if they wanted John to be a part of it. The treatment period can be lonely, it won’t do for the patient not to see his friends at all, do give this some thought.