Small permissions can change how fully someone inhabits a room.

Whether people relax somewhere depends less on the furniture than on what they believe is allowed. Taking a chair, moving it, opening a window, asking for something without apologising: each of those is a small permission, and its absence keeps a person seated on the edge of things. Most of the time nobody has forbidden anything; it simply has not been made clear.

If you are the one who has been in a room longest, say the permissions out loud. Telling someone where the water is and that they can move the chair changes their afternoon more than a longer welcome would.