Some closeness grows through remembering which subjects need gentleness today.

Closeness is partly a matter of memory. Knowing that this month is the anniversary, that the job situation is still raw, that asking about the family will land differently this year: none of that is dramatic, and it is most of what makes someone feel known. The opposite is not cruelty but inattention, the friend who raises a tender subject cheerfully because they never registered that it was tender.

Keep a light mental note of what is sore for the people close to you right now. Ask before you open something, even briefly, and let them decline. And when someone handles a subject carefully around you, notice it.