Remember the small thing your friend mentioned last week and ask about it. It tells them they were heard.

People mention small things constantly and assume they evaporate: an audition, a sick dog, a test on Thursday. Asking about one a week later proves the first telling landed somewhere, and that proof carries more weight than any amount of sympathetic nodding in the moment. Attention is the part of caring that cannot really be faked.

Think back over this week and find one small thing a friend mentioned in passing. Ask them about it by name in the next day or two. Do that often enough and you become the person people tell things to.