"But if you know a person who is OK with silence, you can try... 'companionate solitude,' where you do something alone together."

"When [psychologist Robert] Coplan was young, he would go fishing with his father on a quiet lake. 'We would sit there for hours at a time and wouldn’t say a word to each other,' he recalled. 'It was like I was alone, but he was there, and that was comforting.'"

From "We All Need Solitude. Here’s How to Embrace It. Alone time can help you reduce stress and manage emotions, but you have to be intentional about it, experts say" (NYT).