A ride home at 1 a.m. with no questions asked tells you more than a hundred likes ever will.

Online support is free, which is what makes it weak as evidence. Getting out of bed and driving across town costs sleep, gas and the next morning, and nobody does that by accident. The part that matters most is the absence of questions, because it means the help was not conditional on you explaining yourself first.

Make a short list of who you could call at that hour and be honest about its length. Then make sure you are on somebody else’s. Say yes the next time it is inconvenient, and keep the questions until the morning or forever.