Closeness vs relationship health

Grenier shows two things about every contact that look similar but mean different things: their closeness and their relationship health. Closeness tells you how close someone is to you; relationship health tells you whether you're keeping up with them.

Closeness is a stable level you set — or that Grenier suggests from your message history — and it sets the target keep-in-touch cadence. Garden is your closest people at about 90 days, Orchard is regular contact at about 180 days, and Cornfield is occasional but real at about 365 days. Closeness doesn't change unless you move someone.

Relationship health reads as one distinction: at the rhythm you set, or past it. It's scored from how recently and often you've been in touch, the give-and-take balance of your messages, and recent signals — but crucially, it's measured relative to the closeness cadence, not a fixed calendar. Health shifts over time as you do (or don't) reach out.

Because health is measured against the closeness cadence, the same gap means different things for different people. 180 days of silence pushes a Garden contact past their rhythm — you're overdue against a 90-day target — but leaves a Cornfield contact comfortably tended, since that is well inside a 365-day target.

So the two work together: closeness tells you who matters, and health tells you who needs attention right now. The most urgent person to reach out to is a Garden contact who has gone past their rhythm.

One pairing that often looks confusing: Cornfield (the loosest closeness level — still on someone's list) and Fallow (no closeness at all — the cohort you haven't placed) feel like the same thing, but they aren't. A Cornfield contact has a rhythm, however slow; a Fallow contact has none — Grenier isn't tracking them and won't remind you just because time passes. If there's news about them or where they work, they can come back.