This story was originally published in The Highlight, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get access to member-exclusive stories every month, become a Vox Member today.

On any given Saturday, you might find Morgan Quinn Ross, an assistant professor of emerging media and technology at Oregon State University, deep in the mountainous woods, sans phone, on a solo run. “People generally know that I do it, so if I die, I would like to think that they would find me eventually,” Ross tells Vox. “But I find that really restorative. I find that it’s really helpful just to check back in with myself after the week and really appreciate nature.” After conducting multiple studies on solitude, he’s come to consider this form of alone time — one completely removed from human contact — a way of being “attuned to the self.”

During the week, Ross trains with a run club, but Saturdays are for him; they’re his opportunity to reflect. Though a solitary jog through the woods hardly seems social at all, the ritual is an essential component of Ross’s social routine, as alone time is necessary for any well-balanced social life. 

Jeffrey A. Hall, a communication studies professor at the University of Kansas, sees this ratio of alone and social time as integral to a healthy “social biome,” which is also the title of the book he co-authored with Andy J. Merolla, a communications professor at UC Santa Barbara. Each person’s unique social biome encompasses all of their regular interactions with friends and family, co-workers, and strangers, and it thrives when there is a mix of connectedness and alone time. Because social interaction is inherently energy-intensive, everyone needs solitude to replenish. “It allows us to regroup, understand our sense of self, recharge our batteries, but then also be capable of entering into conversation and discourse with curiosity and compassion and interest,” Hall tells Vox.

Despite — or perhaps because of — solitude’s restorative abilities, we’ve collectively gone a little overboard on alone time. Between 2003 and 2019, Americans spent an increasing amount of their day alone: 43.5 percent in 2003 versus 48.7 percent in 2019, according to an analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. (It went up even more in 2020.) Meanwhile, the amount of time Americans spent with people they don’t live with dropped.

These shifts are reflected in cultural messages like the push to “protect one’s peace” from exhausting friends and the glorification of canceling plans. Ironically, a lot of attention has been paid to the loneliness epidemic, and the physical and emotional harms that chronic loneliness can cause. But someone who spends frequent time in solitude isn’t necessarily lonely, just as people who are physically alone might not be getting restorative solitude. Are you really by yourself if you’re accessible by text and email?

While the ideal amount of solitude is unique to each individual, there are ways to ensure alone time is truly beneficial and doesn’t become your default state.

“Shades of solitude”

In a 2024 study, Ross outlined the ways in which solitude can end up being fairly social; he and his co-author referred to it as being “shaded” by technology. On one end of the spectrum is total isolation, where you’re physically alone, inaccessible to others, and not engaging in any virtual communication or social media consumption. On the other end are instances in which you’re not exactly socializing, but there’s potential for social interaction; think of being in a coffee shop with strangers, available on Slack, looking at Instagram. Everything else falls somewhere in the middle. For example, reading a book or scrolling TikTok is what Ross considers a solitary social experience due to the ability to engage with another’s thoughts. 

In this study, all forms of solitude were restorative, but participants considered the more social versions, like reading in a coffee shop, more effective at fostering connection while, at the same time, recharging their batteries. These semi-social solitary pursuits might also be more accessible for those who can’t steal away for hours at a time. “There’s different possible experiences with these different types of solitude,” Ross says. “It comes down to aligning what you’re able to carve out in your day-to-day life, as well as some of the specific things that you’re trying to get out of solitude. Being in the woods might be better for some things, but the moment on the commute and the shower, those moments might be more helpful for other things.”

In research led by Thuy-vy Nguyen, principal investigator of the Solitude Lab and an associate professor at Durham University, participants mentioned partaking in quiet, enjoyable activities like reading, listening to music, gardening, and, yes, taking a walk in nature. “The activities that you do also shape your solitude experience,” Nguyen tells Vox. “If you can find things that you enjoy doing and you want a space where you can be free to do that activity, that’s also good.”

Sabotaging solitude

Regardless of your preferred vehicle for solitude, the intended result is “a state of calm and relaxation,” says Nguyen. Truly restorative alone time allows us to mellow out after highly stimulating events, whether they were fun and exciting or frustrating and anger-inducing. “A lot of times people also find it’s a space to cope with mental fatigue,” she says.

But the pressures and distractions of the modern world can undermine solitary peace. While Ross’s study found that being technologically plugged in wasn’t detrimental to restorative solitude, there may be a point where being too available can backfire. “If you’re really trying to engage in self-reflection and be more internally focused, I think that’s where the possibility of a phone call or engaging with media might conflict with that,” he says.

Hall, the communication professor, agrees that the gray area of solitude — being physically alone but checking emails, answering texts and phone calls — compromises the restorative aspects of alone time. Those demands and obligations directly interfere with your ability to recharge, he says. It’s particularly difficult to decompress if the inputs are stressful, like breaking news alerts. To fully reap the benefits of solitude, Hall says, “you should be comfortable with the idea that work can’t reach you right now, or the stressors of the world need to [be] put at bay, or you need to retreat into a room to have some peace and quiet because you have a two-year-old at home.”

In her studies, Nguyen has found that even participants who have access to their phones report feeling calm. But consuming a constant stream of stimulating content on the phone can prevent you from sitting with your thoughts and reflecting.

There’s a case, then, to be made for preserving the sanctity of both social and and alone time, to fully embrace both ends of the spectrum. To get the most out of solitude, you might need to ditch your phone, which, in turn, may allow you to be fully present when spending time with friends later.

“Our current communication landscape offers all of these different things in between, where you’re kind of socializing, but you’re also kind of alone,” Ross says. “But I think, by and large, there’s value in having these experiences of really being in these social interactions and really being in these solitude moments.”

Stuck in solitude

While solitude is a good thing, and spending more time alone does not necessarily make a person lonely, it’s possible to grow too accustomed to isolation, Hall says. With plenty of opportunities approximating social connection — parasocial relationships to podcast hosts, exchanging DMs on Instagram with friends — you might experience social inertia and start to forgo actual human interaction.

Nguyen’s current research explores the idea of being “stuck” in solitude, and the issue isn’t isolation, she says, but the emotions associated with being alone. She says people might feel like they don’t connect with those in their social network when they hang out with them, so they stop making plans, or they could get really hooked on one solitary hobby, like interacting with an AI chatbot. If you feel that ChatGPT is meeting your social needs, you might not be motivated to venture out to talk to a real person. 

Rather than utilizing solitude as a means of avoiding others, experts say, consider it a necessary component as your social biome. In terms of the proportion of the day, a lot of people spend the majority of their time not socializing: you’re sleeping, commuting, or engaged in deep work. Maximizing social time, then, has the greatest payoff to well-being, Hall says. (Of course, there are highly social professions, like nurses, teachers, and servers, where one might need to prioritize solitude instead.) Send a text, make a plan with a friend this week, say hi to a neighbor. “Our current social discourse is, ‘People are exhausting, don’t do any of it,’” Hall says. “I think that the evidence is actually much stronger saying do a little of it frequently and make it into a routine.”

Caroline Sacks wasn’t used to dating quiet guys, guys who liked meditation, yoga, and the Grateful Dead. 

Sacks, a 29-year-old content creator who lives in Brooklyn, is more of a Bridgerton and Justin Bieber girl herself. In the past, she tended to date people who had the same interests and had similarly high energy. But those relationships didn’t pan out. So, rather than drop the Deadhead before their relationship really began, Sacks saw those differences as minor misalignments, something to be curious about instead of dismissing out of hand. Over the last six years, she’s been to several Dead and Company shows and she is now marrying the Deadhead. “If you met us separately, I really don’t think you would put us together in any way, shape or form,” Sacks tells Vox.

Modern romance is marked by many, often contradictory, truisms. Love is easy, but it also requires hard work, and yet feelings of frustration or annoyance are red flags. For long-term happiness, your interests and lifestyle must be consistent, yet we’re told opposites attract.

The truth is, believing you have plenty in common with your partner is more important than your actual similarities, experts say. And part of the fun of being with someone whose interests are very different from yours is finding the activities you do enjoy together. “Imagine that if you line up the 10,000 things that two people might have in common,” says Paul Eastwick, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis and author of Bonded By Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection. “All you really need to craft a relationship that feels fulfilling is the ability to build around three or four of those things.”

Why we date similar people

People do typically form relationships with those of similar ethnicity, religion, education, and lifestyle behaviors; it’s known as homophily. Research has shown that the closer you are to a person, the more alike you probably are. 

We naturally self-sort based on our interests, too; if you frequent a certain bar or join a local civic organization, you’ll meet people who share at least one thing in common with you. “When you think of how two people would meet if they have zero things in common, it’s hard to come up with a lot of scenarios,” William Chopik, an associate professor of social and personality psychology at Michigan State University, tells Vox. “People often meet through their mutual interests. They’ll meet at a run club, or at work, or at church maybe.”

And dating apps make screening for these similarities easier than ever; it’s not difficult to, say, write off hikers or keep your eyes peeled for fellow art enthusiasts. Although apps broaden the dating pool to include people outside of your usual social contexts, all it takes is a swipe to weed out potential matches based on your perceived dissimilarities. But that can be ill-advised, because what we think we want in a partner isn’t necessarily what we actually want. In a study, Eastwick found that the qualities people say they find attractive aren’t necessarily present in the people they end up with.

Having similar interests doesn’t mean you’re entirely compatible either. “In general, we say that two people are compatible when they can be together without constant friction,” Alessia Marchi, a couples counselor who has studied compatibility, tells Vox in an email. That means people mesh when their core values and big-picture goals — whether they want kids, their political leanings, how they find purpose and meaning — are aligned. Liking the same movies isn’t as important. 

“In some cases, these differences can enrich the relationship, allowing partners to learn from each other and adding variety and value to their shared experience,” Marchi says. 

Insisting that your soul mate possesses all your same interests means possibly missing out on a would-be good partner because they like camping and you don’t. “Maybe you overlook someone who’s 85 percent similar,” Chopik says. “You tried to get someone who’s 90 percent similar, but maybe the 85-percent person was perfectly fine or nicer or had other characteristics that they didn’t put in their Tinder profile.”

Perceived common ground matters more than actual similarity

Two people can be vastly different, but so long as they believe they have a lot in common, they have a higher likelihood of staying together, research has found. When you like someone, you might be more motivated to find common ground — something as simple as that you both enjoyed rock climbing that one time, or that you both like cooking stews in the winter. “If you are dramatically different than your partner, it might not matter if you don’t think that,” Chopik says. “If you have a crush or you seek out similarities, odds are you’ll find them.” 

Actively focusing on your similarities instead of your differences could improve your relationship, too. In an as-yet-unpublished study, researchers found that after people considered their similarities with their partner, they thought about the person more positively. “Just reflecting and asking yourself, ‘What did we agree on? What did we have in common today?’” says one of the study’s authors, Annika From, a postdoctoral associate at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The specific areas of overlap aren’t of importance — what matters is that you find them. Rather than insisting on a partner who likes salsa dancing as much as you do, finding new hobbies together should be an “active construction process” that you build into your identity as a couple, Eastwick says. Salsa dancing might not be what you end up seriously bonding over anyway. Why limit yourself?  

And you may discover similarities as you partake in new experiences together. Romantic relationships can help open doors to novel insights and events, which help expand your sense of self and identity. “If you think you don’t have things in common, maybe you do,” Chopik says. “You both went to this horrible art showing and you bonded over how much you hated the pretentious people.”

When differences add excitement

You don’t need to convince your partner of the joys of arcade games just because you like them; it’s perfectly healthy for each partner to have unique interests they partake in solo or with friends. And if it is important to you that your significant other shares your love of cooking, for instance, consider less obvious ways of including them, like tasking them to pick a recipe or a dessert pairing. Sacks, the content creator from Brooklyn, has gotten her fiance, who she described as a relatively unskilled chef, involved in the kitchen, and they whip up curries and protein bowls together. 

Knowing someone finds you fascinating despite not sharing any of your interests can even be a turn-on. One study found that when participants perceive someone with different hobbies as being interested in them, that person becomes more attractive. When they express curiosity about your hobbies, you invite them into your world, exposing them to potentially fresh perspectives, knowledge, and skillsets. “It’s so exciting to have this chance to see the world through somebody else’s eyes, through somebody else’s vantage point,” Eastwick says.

For Sacks, that means listening to the Grateful Dead on road trips because it’s what her fiance loves and dragging him to violin cover band concerts when no one else will go with her. “You wouldn’t say that we would be a natural brand fit,” she says, “but I think it’s just a curiosity and excitement for one another that it doesn’t matter.”

You may generally disregard unfamiliar faces as background characters in the movie that is your life, but almost everyone you care about was once a stranger. Aside from the people who have been in your life since you were born, every relationship has a getting-to-know you process where you transition from unknowns to knowns. 

Strangers can bring so much meaning to everyday moments, in big ways and small ones. In her new book Once Upon A Stranger: The Science of How “Small” Talk Can Add Up to a Big Life, Gillian Sandstrom, an associate professor in the psychology of kindness at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, makes the case for why we should make more attempts to connect with unknowns. Sandstrom draws on research that both extols the virtues of interacting with strangers (talking with them improves well-being) and helps quell your fears (people enjoy talking to us more than we think).

Among the most nerve-wracking of stranger encounters are ones where you’re the unknown entity in a group: at a new job, a knitting club, or on the block. Everyone is unfamiliar to you, but to them, you’re the sole stranger. Here, Sandstrom offers some advice on how to integrate into the unit, and why you probably aren’t as embarrassing as you think.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Is there a difference between talking to a stranger on the street versus going into a new a cappella group and they all know each other and you don’t? Is the stranger scenario different for each of those contexts? 

There is something different when you know that you might see the person again, because you probably worry more about their judgment. You want them to like you, so that when you see them again, you might want to talk again. Sometimes people worry [the other person doesn’t] want that. So you might think, I see the same person at the bus stop every day and I could say hi. But what if I do and then I don’t like them? Or if they’re boring and then I’m going to have to talk to them every single time I go to the bus stop? So it’s better to just not talk at all. It’s definitely scarier when you know that there’s the potential to see people again; you really want to make a good impression. It feels higher stakes. 

Would this type of conversation fall under the umbrella of small talk?

The way you start a conversation works the same way whenever you’re talking to someone that you haven’t met before, regardless of what’s going to happen in the future, if you’re going to see them again or not. You have to figure out, What are we going to talk about? I don’t know you, so I don’t know which topics are good and which topics are not good, and we have to fumble our way to finding some common ground. The choir [you just joined] is a good conversation starter. You’ve chosen the same thing to do. Or you’re working for the same employer. You have something in common, which could be an easier conversation starter. 

What stuck out to me in the book was what you call Sid, this insidious voice in your head who’s telling you not to talk to strangers, and that you’re not interesting and nobody likes you. That voice is even stronger in situations where everybody knows each other and you are the new person. What advice would you have to quiet that voice? 

That voice in our head that’s like, “You suck, you don’t know what you’re doing, nobody likes you” — part of that comes from always comparing ourselves to others. There’s research showing that we generally think we’re better than average at almost everything, but not at social stuff. This is almost the only thing where we think we’re not better than average. Who are you comparing yourself to? We compare ourselves to highly social people, the people who are really good at this. That’s partly why we think that we’re not any good, because we’re comparing ourselves to the best of the best. 

We have to be better at realizing, yes, there are some people like that, but we don’t have to compare ourselves to those people who are really good. If you look around the room, probably more people are like you desperately trying to figure it out and have a decent conversation. 

I am a researcher, so I’m all about the data. Okay, Sid, what data do you have? Show me the receipts. We don’t talk to strangers very often, and when we don’t have enough data, we can’t [easily] be like, “Oh yeah, I remember that great conversation I had.” We remember the really bad stuff. If you ever had a conversation with a stranger that didn’t go well, or you tried to talk to someone and it was a bit awkward or they didn’t want to talk, that’s what you’re going to remember. For me, what helps quiet Sid is to be able to say, “No, you have no basis for what you’re telling me. You have no data.” 

I was really struck by your study that showed most conversations with strangers go well; there are very few that are total trainwrecks. That speaks to the idea that we’re making this up. It’s not that bad.

When we don’t have data, we have to imagine stuff, and it’s easier to imagine those trainwrecks. That’s the stuff we remember. It’s the drama.

It also ups the stakes, especially if you’re the new person at work and thinking, “I’m going to say something stupid, and they’re going to see me every day and think I’m an idiot for the rest of the time that we work together.”

There’s this research on who we’re willing to confide in. People, in certain situations, would rather share something with someone they don’t know, because if they share it with someone they do know, every time they see that person they’re going to be reminded of the fact that they shared that thing. The same is true here. If you tell a joke that nobody laughs at, you might think that every time you see them, you’ll be reminded of that joke and it didn’t go over well. They’re probably not thinking of it. The spotlight effect is when we feel like other people are noticing all our flaws more than they actually do, and then, that changes how you act, and it makes things more awkward. There’s a self-fulfilling prophecy going on. 

What if you said something stupid and everyone laughed. How do you move on?

If it was me, I’d try to make a joke about it. There have been so many times where I have continued to feel bad about something, and every once in a while, I bring it up and people are like, “I don’t even remember that.” What you could do is say, “I’m still thinking about that horrible joke I told last time.” Guaranteed, they’ll be like, “What joke? I don’t even remember.”

Why is it worth talking to strangers, especially the ones that you are going to see regularly? 

It does not feel the same if you’re on a dodgeball team and you’re not talking to anybody on your team. The fun comes from being able to joke around and trash talk the opponents together and have a cup of tea afterwards. What would it feel like if you didn’t have any of that? It would be empty.

A lot of people join a group, and then, they find a couple people, and then, anytime they go to the group, they talk to those few people, and that’s it. I try really hard not to do that. I try to meet lots of people. I play in an amateur orchestra. How do you turn a chat at the orchestra to something outside of the orchestra? If you did want to turn it into something lasting, you need that repeated contact. If you’re seeing the same people every week, that’s a good start. But then, you also have to be willing and brave enough to say, “Let’s grab a coffee afterwards.” 

What if you don’t want to take these relationships further?

That’s fine. You shouldn’t feel like you have to get their name and their contact info and do something, but you can if you want to. There’s research on how having a diversity of interaction partners is important. You learn different things from different people.

What misconceptions do you think people have about the value of interacting with strangers? 

People start by thinking, I’m not going to have anything in common with them. Why would I? What’s in it for me? One of the reasons that we connect with other people is because we can do more together, and we feel safer when we’re in a group. We’re going to thrive. The workplace is going to be able to produce more, because we’re going to be better at teamwork, and we’re going to trust each other more. But for that to happen, someone has to go first. You have to be thinking about the “we.”

I like the way you put it: Someone has to go first. It almost feels like we’re at a school dance, and we’re all standing on the sidelines, but we want the same thing.

That’s the biggest misconception in terms of talking to strangers, period: We walk around thinking we’re the only ones who are anxious and that we don’t know what to do and that they don’t want to talk to us. But everybody’s feeling that way. It takes one person to be brave, to figure out how to ignore Sid’s voice in their head and just do it anyway. 

Most of us would like to believe we’re good listeners — but the truth is, we all struggle to really pay attention when someone else is talking. 

“Most of the time when you ask people, ‘How well do you think you’re doing at listening to people?,’ they’re going to say, ‘Really well,’” Graham Bodie, a media and communication professor at the University of Mississippi, tells Vox. “But then when you ask about other people, they tend to say, ‘People are bad.’” 

One study found that we recall more of what we said to someone compared to what was said to us. At best, people remembered 44 percent of any one conversation; other research has shown listeners’ minds wander nearly a quarter of the time while conversing. Amid the cacophony of devices dinging, children interrupting, and to-do lists haunting, your friend’s story about their vacation can quickly become background noise. Or you end up focusing more on what you’re going to say once they’re finished than on really hearing them. 

Many times, it’s those closest to us whom we hear the least. As your mom complains about her neighbor again and your mind wanders to your to-do list, you might subconsciously signal listening behaviors — a nod, smiles, a few “mhm”s — effectively fooling her into thinking you’re paying attention. But this is the worst sin of all, according to Christian van Nieuwerburgh, professor of coaching and positive psychology at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and co-author of Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection. “This half-listening is actually really detrimental to relationships because it damages expectations,” he tells Vox. “It can be hurtful to people when they’re expecting us to listen and suddenly we don’t.”

On the other hand, when people feel heard, they report feeling more positively about their relationships, safer with their conversation partners, and more open to compromise, which could encourage them to open up more. Listening to someone is one way to make them feel loved, according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, the author of How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most, the book she co-wrote with social psychologist Harry Reis. “When was the last time someone was really curious about you, just couldn’t wait for you to finish your story? It’s very compelling,” she tells Vox.

If you want to forge stronger connections with those around you, especially the people you intimately know and love, it’s worth bolstering your listening skills. Deep listening requires curiosity, comprehension, and reflection, experts say. And sometimes, it means admitting when you’re distracted.

“Good relationships are founded on good conversations,” Hanne Collins, assistant professor of management and organizations at UCLA, tells Vox. “And good conversations are really founded on good listening.”

1) Go beyond active listening

Much of our understanding of listening originates from the concept of active listening, coined by psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1950s. To do it, you are supposed to give your full attention to the speaker, ask follow-up questions, suspend judgment, and keep the conversation on topic. Other research has identified similar components of high-quality listening: attention, understanding, and positive intentions. You can probably intuit what this looks like in practice; closing your laptop when in active conversation (attention), saying something like “It sounds like you have a lot going on right now” (understanding), and biting your tongue when you feel the urge to judge (positive intentions).

The problem with these frameworks, according to Bodie, is they turn listening into a checklist. “If that’s your idea of good listening, it’s a misconception because then you go about laying down that template in every situation you find yourself in, and you become this robotic ChatGPT listener, as opposed to a human who can navigate and adapt to the varying situations that they find themselves in,” Bodie says. 

Life presents a multitude of conversation types — a business meeting, an argument, a gossip session — and we need to adapt our approach to listening for each one. A friend going through a hard time might simply need an empathetic ear; you may ask more follow-up questions when getting pet-sitting instructions from a neighbor.

It’s important to regularly reflect on how you show up in conversations. “Are my listening habits helping me or hindering me in this context, in this situation, with this person, in this meeting, and so forth?” Bodie says. Think about some recent interactions you had. What do you tend to listen for (and often miss)? How do you respond? What does your face and body language convey? Do your follow-up questions come across as warm and curious or critical? Do you even ask follow-up questions at all? 

2) Listen to learn

The function of listening isn’t just to formulate a response — it’s to understand your conversation partner. Lyubomirsky and Reis describe it in their book as “listening to learn.” Growing up, kids are generally taught to pay attention in order to respond to teachers in class, parents at home. “It’s such a habit for us to constantly respond,” Lyubomirsky says. “So when you’re talking, I’m listening with half an ear, but the other half, I’m really trying to rehearse my answer to you.”

When you’re listening to learn, your only objective is to take in another’s point of view. Lyubomirsky likened the experience to watching a movie. “When you’re watching a film, unless you’re a filmmaker or you’re writing a paper on the film, you’re just taking it in, right?” she says. “You’re not formulating a response, you’re not thinking, What am I saying next?”

Perhaps the most visible ways of signalling your understanding to the listener are to paraphrase and ask follow-up questions. What I think I’m hearing you say is…; Tell me more about…; How did they react when you told them that?; This sounds like that other time you…. The key is to let the other person lead, according to Taylor West, a postdoctoral research fellow in the positive emotions and psychophysiology lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “People will tell you what they want to talk about, but you have to let them,” she says.

Continually pulling the conversational thread requires curiosity. Without it, there can’t be connection. This is especially important to be aware of in long-term relationships. “We often stop being curious about the people that we know the best, that we’ve known for longest, because we think that we know everything about them, and yet, there’s always something new to learn,” Lyubomirsky says. 

Of course, you won’t be endlessly interested in everything your partner or best friend or kid has to say. Maybe your spouse has recently gotten into gardening and their talk of bolting and hardening off makes your eyes glaze over. But you can — and should — find ways to manufacture interest, Lyubomirsky says, because it’s crucial for showing the other person that you’re still engaged. Maybe you read up on plants native to your area so you have some basis from which to ask questions, or just ask them what they are most excited to grow next year. There’s always something to learn.

3) Figure out how to reset when you’re distracted

We all zone out occasionally, or get too tired to engage properly; experts say it’s best to simply own up to these limitations. Telling a coworker, “Let me just finish this email and you’ll have my full attention” is better than half-listening while you type. Asking a friend if you can revisit a conversation when you aren’t so fried may prevent you from saying something less than helpful or that you’ll later regret.

It might be awkward or even embarrassing, but we need to normalize admitting when we’re not totally present, says Bodie, the communication professor: “I’m so sorry, I got distracted by those sirens. What were you saying?” In meetings at work, you might say “I apologize, I was thinking about what you said earlier and wasn’t fully listening. Could you repeat that?” if you feel comfortable.

You should also take a critical look at your workspace, home, schedule, and general habits to figure out how to minimize distractions. “Is the way in which my office is structured, is the way in which my day is structured, is the way in which people expect me to multitask, are those things incentivizing distraction?” Bodie says. You could dedicate phone-free hours at home or seek out a calm, quiet environment when you’re hanging out with friends. 

Giving someone your full attention and genuinely hearing what they have to say is one of the greatest gifts you can give. It doesn’t always come easy, but with a little effort, you can be the kind of listener everyone wants to confide in. “Conversation is a skill,” says Collins, the UCLA professor. “It’s something that we can practice and get better at.”