Sitting with a friend who’s going through something hard and saying almost nothing still counts.

Company is not the same as advice, and when something has genuinely gone wrong, advice is usually the thing least needed. Being in the room is the whole offer. Sitting in silence next to someone tells them they are not strange or too much, which is often the fear underneath whatever happened.

If a friend is going through something this week, go and sit with them without a plan for what to say. Bring food, watch something, or just be there while they say nothing. You do not have to be good at this to be useful at it.