My roommate just found out her ex-fiance is terminally ill and is likely to pass away soon. Though they had a weird relationship, I can tell she’s taking it pretty hard. I really want to be supportive, but I honestly don’t know what to do or say around a grieving person. I’m worried about saying the wrong thing, especially because I’m really uncomfortable with grief. I told her I am here for her if she needs anything. What do you do and say for a person who’s in such a terrible situation?

When we’re around other people, especially other people who are upset, we tend to get uncomfortable with silences and rush to fill them with words. Unfortunately, not being Confucius or the Dalai Lama, we reach into our memory and pull out whichever condolence cliches are closest to the top, like, “Soon he’ll be in a better place.” (Where...an urn?)

 Though we mere mortals tend to fail at profundities, we can do profoundly kind acts. What people who are suffering need at a time like this is compassion. Compassion gets confused with empathy (which a number of researchers define as “feeling with” a person). However, compassion is more than a feeling; it’s empathy with an action plan: the motivation to try to alleviate another person’s suffering.

 There’s a temptation to be vague in offering help — “I’m here for you if you need anything” — probably because it’s hard to know what would help and also because you want to avoid offering the “wrong” thing. 

But what really count are your intentions. Consider that she has a lot of emotional weight on her now, and she probably doesn’t have her usual energy for routine chores like making dinner, picking up her prescription, or washing her car. If you step in and do these, let her know it’s about giving her a little help while she’s struggling. It should mean a lot.

 You’re telling her she’s not alone, but in a way that doesn’t take poetic eloquence or attempts to cheer her up (because her sadness is uncomfortable for you). The reality is, 80 percent of success in amateur grief counseling is knowing better than to put the “fun” in funeral. The other 20 percent is just showing up — with pizza and pot edibles.

See monster 

When people advise that you shouldn’t reveal too much on the first date, I think they’re talking about your areolas.

 There’s a lot of important information you’re missing when you’re communicating without seeing someone’s facial expressions. Zoologist Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, who studied human animals in addition to the kind with paws and tails, explained emotional expressions as “the grammar of social interaction.” Facial expressions (as well as body language) give us a nuanced understanding of other people’s feelings and intentions in the way punctuation marks shape how we understand a set of words (for example, “Want to eat, Grandma?” versus “Want to eat Grandma?”).

 In fact, people will often say one thing with their words (like, “Really, I’m fine”), but to get the whole of what they’re expressing, you need to add the “pictures”: the emotions they’re displaying. For example, social psychologist Dacher Keltner, who researches emotional expressiveness, observes that “when a colleague shows signs of anger — with tightened lips, furrowed brow, and slightly raised upper eyelid — I learn that he or she is frustrated, is appraising the current interaction as unfair, will likely act antagonistically, and may feel a sense of righteous indignation.”

 Men, especially, have very visually driven sexuality, so if you won’t FaceTime, you’re probably at a disadvantage compared with women who will. Chances are your real fear is that a guy won’t find you attractive. But if a guy’s not that into your looks, a screen won’t change that. Finding out where he stands as soon as possible could keep you from getting attached to somebody you’ll ultimately have to pry yourself away from. On the the other hand, revealing more of yourself will make the right guy more interested. And yes, there are people who even get married without seeing each other’s faces, but just in cultures where the marriage is conditioned on one’s father giving the other’s father 14 goats, five oxen, and a 1967 Subaru.

Doom raider

It helps to suddenly become British when you run into someone you dread seeing, because a posh British accent is ideal for conveying a politegreeting like: “What a surprise. I was sure someone would’ve poisoned you by now, or at least electrocuted you in the bathtub.”

 What doesn’t help is ruminating on how you’ll feel if you do see your ex. Unfortunately, our mind is not our BFF, and it has a habit of sending us off in directions that cause us needless suffering. For example, we are our own worst emotional fortunetellers, or in psychologists’ terms, we are crap at “affective forecasting.” (“Affect” is a fancy-schmancy researcher word for moods and emotions we experience.) 

Social psychologists Sarit Golub and Daniel Gilbert find that we tend to overestimate how bad some future event will make us feel. This overblown prediction of how miserable we’ll be in the future serves to bum us out in the present. Accordingly, the researchers observe that “it may be” as the Stoic philosopher Seneca noted nearly 2 million years ago, “He who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary.”

 When the ex pops up in your head, instead of rerunning your usual social horror movies, recognize that you have what it takes to deal with whatever comes your way. 

After all, what’s the worst thing that’s likely to happen, an uncomfortable silence preceding an uncomfortable moment greeting each other? (This is rarely fatal.) Keep reminding yourself of this whenever dread arises, and though you might never become a pillar of chill, you should find your overall level of hysteria dialed down considerably.

 Eventually, if your paths do cross, you should be able to stand there like it’s no big deal, which suggests you are barely cognizant of his continued existence...in a way running outside and hiding between parked cars like it’s a hostage crisis just can’t.

Ember alert 

The easiest way to break up with someone is to be crushed by a flaming meteorite. There’s no uncomfortable conversation; your smoking ashes say it all: “It’s not you. It’s me, and specifically, the way I’ve been turned into a pile of fireplace trash.”

 You, on the other hand, are turning this guy into a human beetle trapped in relationship amber because you’re letting your emotions do your thinking. 

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains that our brain has two information-processing systems, a fast-responding emotional system and a slower rational system. Our fast emotional system jumps in automatically. (You just get angry when someone keys your car; you don’t have to decide to be angry.) 

Reasoning, however, is “mental work,” Kahneman explains. It requires choosing to make the effort, like considering whether your initial emotional reaction (in this case, “avoid conflict at all cost!”) is actually a wise response.

 You might, for example, calculate how much time you spend daily fretting over procrastinating and add up the weekly “cost.” 

Chances are you’re actually having a ton of “conflict”; it’s just not with the person it would be helpful to. Telling this guy, “I just don’t think we’re a good fit,” on the other hand, releases him to find somebody who actually wants him.