The call that includes nothing remarkable can keep a relationship inside daily life.

Waiting until you have news is how people drift apart without deciding to. If contact requires an occasion, the occasions get further apart, and eventually each call needs a summary of six months, which is heavy enough to postpone again. A call about nothing keeps the relationship in the present tense. You end up knowing what someone’s week actually contains rather than their headlines.

Ring somebody today with no reason and say so at the start. Talk about the weather, the shopping, what is on television. Five minutes of nothing, repeated, does more for closeness than an hour of catching up twice a year.