At night the window shows you instead of the street. When you’re lit up inside, it’s hard to see out.

When there is more light inside than out, a window turns into a mirror. Minds do the same: if you are full of your own worry or your own excitement, you will find yourself in every conversation, reading every reply as being about you. That is not vanity, it is a problem of brightness.

The move is to turn your own lights down for a bit. Ask somebody two questions in a row about them and answer nothing about yourself in between. It feels oddly difficult for the first minute, and then the street appears: their week, their bad day, whatever they have not told anyone.