This seems like "what decent people do". "Social intelligence" might not have been the best word but the point is that people-who-function-society, people with actual friendships, make equality in those friendships important. These would be normal people with normal social abilities/intelligence/whatever.

Remember the point of the original is your friend calls you to say "you're coming to the show 'cause we couldn't get tickets" with no alternate plans/apologies explanations etc. And test was a "rational" person was supposed to see this an event having no impact on the friendship. I think it's someone with moderate social skills that this isn't the way things work and it seems like your example demonstrates. But oppositely, the people chiming in to say "what's the problem, things happen that way" likely just aren't tuned in this stuff.

Edit: I'll admit I mostly chose the term "social intelligence" to wave in the face of the HN fans of things like the anti-social "logic" of this study, since these types really value their competence and they tend to be very incompetent at the skill of being-a-decent-person, which might a better synonym for "social intelligence".

It's also not necessarily even a "friend ranking" who does get picked when the goal is to see Hamilton. When choosing who to prioritize you're going to consider who would appreciate seeing Hamilton the most, who (of your close friends) it's been the longest since you did something with, who might have recently invited you to a similarly in-demand event, etc.