The sci-fi hypothesis that explains why you click with certain people

Not all conversations are the same.

Sometimes, you can be talking to someone for hours, and it feels like only a few minutes. You natter and natter without ever having to think of what to say or cringe through any awkward silence. There’s a gentle sway to things — you listen, they speak, they listen, you speak. The chat dances to the easy and comfortable rhythm of the conversational tide.

At other times, a conversation can feel like medieval torture. One-word answers litter the path toward your desperate, fumbling attempt to get away. You’ve already used the toilet excuse, you’ve got a full drink, so you’re stuck in your chatless hell with Captain Boring.

“So, how often do you feed your dog?” you ask.

“It depends.”

Silence.

In this week’s Mini Philosophy interview, the neuroscientist Ben Rein takes us inside the brain of a good conversation. And what he has to say gives a whole new weight to the expression, “We’re on the same wavelength.”

Nice to meet your brain

There is nothing concrete about human psychology. As a discipline, psychology suffers a replication crisis, and even when it comes to “pretty certain” things, there are likely to be several million exceptions at either end of the bell curve. Neuroscience is a bit better. Biology deals with data and observable phenomena, but here the problem is one of complexity. There’s just too much going on to say this or that has to be the case.

Social psychology is no different. A lot of the “why” behind a good conversation is lost in the untrackable murk of our environment. Maybe your parents taught you a lot about David Bowie, your friends taught you to enjoy Pokémon cards, and too many late hours on Reddit taught you about Doomsday prepping. And so, when you spend ten minutes rattling off the first-generation Pokémon evolutions to someone in a Ziggy Stardust outfit and with a homesteader’s calloused hands, you’re surprised how easy the conversation went.

But, as with everything, it’s not all about our environment. Our genetics, and especially our brain, might have something to say. This is what Rein taught me:

“Research shows that people who are better friends show more similar brain structures in these social brain areas. And so, it’s possible — and this is called homophily — that people like people who are like them. It’s this idea of ‘self-other overlap.’ So it’s probably a stretch to say definitely, but it’s possible that when we meet people we are really connecting with, and when it’s just a great relationship, we have similar brain structures. And, you know, if you have similar brain functions, that may kind of help us get onto the same wavelength.”

Interbrain connectivity

So, if you really get on with someone, it might be that you have similar-looking or similar-working brains. The next time you find yourself laughing and enjoying someone’s company, pause to say, “Hey, I like how your brain works.”

Rein admits that this kind of homophily is an educated speculation at the moment — we don’t have enough data to prove the point conclusively. But we do have more data to point out something else he taught me, and that’s about how our brains will tend to behave similarly to others we’re bonding with. As Rein put it:

“There’s also something else called interbrain synchrony, which is just unbelievable. It sounds like a sci-fi thing, and it is what it sounds like. It’s that when two people are interacting or working together or sharing an experience, their brain activity can synchronize, and not in the way of telephone wires sprouting from our heads. There’s no signal that’s synchronizing; it’s not like that.

But if you were to have those two people in a brain scanner at the same time, they would be showing nearly identical patterns of brain activity in that moment. And this interbrain synchrony — which only occurs in certain brain areas, not the whole brain — seems to support things like teamwork. So it’s possible that when you get on with someone, you’re literally syncing up with someone else’s brain and just making it easy to understand one another.”

The antisocial brain

There are implications to both of these points.

First, get yourself on the same wavelength. If you want less stilted chat and more flow, do things that literally pull your brains into step: face each other, hold eye contact, and share a concrete task or story. These “neural coupling” techniques might lead to better conversations. We know that when people do the same task — at the same time, and in the same way — their brains activate similar parts. Get on the same wavelength, and hope you stay there.

Second, don’t beat yourself up about it. There isn’t anything mystical about “clicking” with someone; it’s likely just neurological. It’s very tempting to ask, “Am I the problem?” or “Am I just bad at chatting?” when it’s possible that it’s simply a case of brain incompatibility. It might even be incompatibility at this moment. Perhaps you’re tired, or you haven’t eaten enough, or your brain is still trying to process that long magazine article you read at lunch.

So, the next time you feel you’ve “clicked” with someone, remember that you’re likely not just imagining it. Your neural activity could be syncing up in real time with another human brain, and it might be that the feeling of a great connection is an invisible biological dance.