We often fear that long-lost friends wouldn’t want to hear from us or that reaching out would be awkward. Now, scientists have come up with an approach to ease our anxieties around making contact.

“People aren’t averse to the idea of reconnection, they’re just worried about the risk of doing it,” says Lara Aknin at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. “They don’t want to be the one who sticks their neck out to initiate…