They liked you more than you think

After talking with someone new, people underestimate how much the other person liked them. It showed up with strangers in a lab, with students sharing a dorm room, and with people meeting at a workshop. The researchers call it the liking gap. Evidence: decent I won't give you a size for it. The direction is the useful part.

So the replay on the way home, the joke that fell flat, the pause that went on too long, is a poor guide to how it went.

It stacks with a second mistake, found in people contacting someone they'd lost touch with: they expect the message to be less welcome than it turns out to be. Evidence: decent Both mistakes point the same way, towards doing nothing. Send it anyway.