The friend who helps you recover your place in a conversation has done something worth remembering.

Losing your thread in front of people is a small humiliation with a long tail. You stop, the room waits, and the harder you reach for the sentence the further it goes. A friend who quietly hands it back, without commentary and without making it a moment, has spared you an evening of replaying it.

When someone stalls, supply the word or the last point and move straight on, as if nothing happened. Do not say you knew what they meant, and do not look at anyone else. And when someone does it for you, thank them later, because they will not think it was anything.