There is a quiet miscalculation most of us make about other people. We assume the reach-out will be awkward, the deeper conversation will fall flat, the old friend has moved on, the stranger beside us wants to be left alone. We are, it turns out, poor forecasters, and the error runs in one direction. We consistently expect connection to cost more and return less than it actually does. That gap is worth naming, because it is fixable. Here are six places it shows up, each with one small move that costs almost nothing. 1. Your honesty reads as courage, not weakness When you admit something is hard, or ask for help, you replay the moment and hear weakness. The person who heard it did not. Research on how people evaluate vulnerability found a reliable split: we judge our own openness...