I would actually prefer that they’re upfront about contacting me because they need a favour, and then using that as an opening to catch up. If they first spend 30 min catching up before jumping to “btw, could you help me out with this” it gives the feeling that they only did the catching up to get me to help them. When it’s the other way around, it feels like they genuinely want to catch up a bit, and used the favour as an excuse/opportunity to contact me to catch up. A personal favourite is if someone wants help with something in the house and asks if I want to come over to help them out and then we can get some beers and a pizza afterwards. Having something to do together can make it a lot easier to pick up the conversation with someone you haven’t met for a long time.
I would actually prefer that they’re upfront about contacting me because they need a favour, and then using that as an opening to catch up. If they first spend 30 min catching up before jumping to “btw, could you help me out with this” it gives the feeling that they only did the catching up to get me to help them. When it’s the other way around, it feels like they genuinely want to catch up a bit, and used the favour as an excuse/opportunity to contact me to catch up. A personal favourite is if someone wants help with something in the house and asks if I want to come over to help them out and then we can get some beers and a pizza afterwards. Having something to do together can make it a lot easier to pick up the conversation with someone you haven’t met for a long time.