What to say when you do not know what to say

Somebody has asked for a hug and you would like to send one, and you are now staring at an empty box, worried about making it worse.

That worry is a good sign. It is the people who are certain they know what to say who tend to get it wrong.

You are not being asked to fix anything

This is the part that trips most people up. The instinct is to solve, and a message that tries to solve usually reads as a message that would like the subject closed.

You have not been asked for a plan or a lesson from your own life. You have been asked to be kind for the length of a paragraph. That is a much smaller job, and you are already qualified for it.

Things that tend to land badly

• Advice that starts with 'have you tried'.
• Comparison, including the kind meant to reassure. Other people having it worse is not a comfort.
• Telling somebody how they feel, or how they should feel about it.
• Relentless brightness. It reads as not having been listened to.
• Anything that asks them to explain more before you will be kind.

Things that tend to land well

Short, specific, and honest that you do not know the situation. Warmth without a demand attached to it. A sentence that does not need answering.

It is fine, and often better, to say that you do not know what to say. That is not a failure to produce the right words. It is the truth, and it tends to read as respect.

Four you can borrow

• I do not know what is going on, and you do not have to tell me. Sending you a good one anyway.
• Long weeks are real, even the ones that look like nothing from outside. Sitting with you for a minute.
• No advice, no questions. Just glad you asked, and here is a hug.
• Whatever today was, it is allowed to have been hard. Take care of yourself tonight.

Change the words. A borrowed sentence in your own voice is better than a polished one that is not.

Two things to remember afterwards

You will not find out whether it helped. There is no thank-you owed and often none sent, and the absence of one means nothing at all. Somebody read a kind thing from a stranger, which was the entire point.

And you are not on duty. Nobody here is a professional anything, this is not a helpline, and you are not responsible for a person you wrote three sentences to. If somebody sounds like they need more than a stranger can give, the honest and kind thing is to say so and point them at people who can help properly.

If you have not sent one yet, give a hug is where it starts. You do not need a reason to be the one giving, either.