Should I keep seeing my 'friends'?

I'm mainly writing this out cathartically, but would still appreciate any advice people have to offer!

In my first few years of uni I had a group of friends I really loved a lot. We got on well, spent every evening together. I felt like it was the first time I'd been properly accepted as a person. The year before last I started going out with someone and felt very guilty about spending less time with them. I tried really hard to balance everything, but was generally just a bit overwhelmed and burnt out by keeping up with uni work, paid work and my social life. So when one of my friends gave me COVID a bit after Christmas, it really knocked me out and I was very ill for a few weeks with side effects lasting long after the end of the year. During that time, I heard from my friends and once I was able to go to group activities again, I usually had to leave early due to the illness. My partner looked after me all the way through this time. I assumed that the reason I didn't see or hear from my friends was because they though I was choosing not to see them, so I felt even guiltier. At the end of the academic year I was lucky enough to go travelling having won an interrail ticket. I went with my partner and it was really incredible, even if I still had no sense of taste and still had lingering fatigue and brain fog. Throughout this time, one of my friends kept saying she'd call but always missed the times we scheduled and aired me for days or weeks after with no explanation. The others didn't message at all, really. But I just assumed everyone was exhausted from term and would keep in touch when they were ready. Anyway, six months pass, I'm now living abroad as part of my degree. The city I lived was very unsafe and very unfriendly, so it wasn't a great six months. My partner also needed some space at this time, so I was doubly lonely. The girl I'd meant to keep up with most was still airing me and, while I messaged everyone from the rest of the group at least once (there were 7 of them), only a few of them replied properly and no one messaged me independently. In November I had to go home for a few days to sort out some paperwork, so I visited them and, while they were nice, there was no effort to catch up properly and I felt like I'd walked into someone else's living room and was just sitting there watching their family live as usual, without actually being part of it. Even once I got home to the country I was living in and one of the girls did finally message back, it was only for support when her boyfriend broke up with her. She called every few days for about a month but then I was ill for a week and didn't keep up during that time and when I was better enough to call again she'd got over her boyfriend and didn't need my support (and therefore to keep in touch with me) anymore.
The next six months I moved country again, much the same happens with my original friends, but this time I have a new group of friends, and I reconnect with my partner properly. This new group showed me what friendship really was...we had fun just the same as I had with the original group, but this group was also kind. For example, they found snack foods that fit my dietary requirements when they realised I wasn't expecting to eat until I got home after a group activity and they checked in regularly and were really encouraging just generally. Then I finally came home and those new friends kept in touch. Even those who struggled to reply to messages because they were super busy would send dog pictures or tiktoks or something in the meantime, and I'd do the same back. But now I'm moving back to where my original friends are, having been through a sort of grieving process for a year, having realised how they didn't check in once when I was seriously ill with COVID, and how little effort they've put in. One of them has since reconnected and said he'd like to train for a marathon together again, and explained why he didn't manage to keep in touch. I understand that life happens and I genuinely like him so ofc I'll spend time with him. But the others... I just don't want to. I feel so unwanted and like I wasted so much time and energy worrying about their friendship. Maybe there were valid reasons not to keep in touch for some of them, but in the end, whatever the reasons, I'm a different person than they knew at this point, and I want to prioritise the people who did put effort in. But even though I'm finally over them, I'm going back to where they live and I'm going to have to work out how to interact with them.

So, my options are:
- spend time with them as before but without the expectation that these will be friendships that stick
- spend less time with them and rely on them not noticing
- spend no time and accept that someone will ask and that I'll have to explain, since we're living so close together
- something else

I don't want to seem ungrateful or uncaring, I think they are all genuinely good people but I've just realised I was never a priority for them. I will always value the time before I was ill when I felt really close to them. But in the end I'm a different person now than I was. I want to feel wanted by the people I spend time with, so I want distance from those people without hurting anyone, especially having been hurt by them all of last year.


Sorry for the long ramble and thank you to anyone who's read to here <3