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"Look at that bird."
That's it. Four words, said while staring out the window on an ordinary Tuesday.
It doesn't sound like a defining moment in a relationship. But according to decades of research by psychologist John Gottman, moments exactly like this one, and how your partner responds to them, may predict the future of your relationship better than your biggest fights or your most romantic dates.
Gottman calls them bids for connection. Once you learn to see them, you'll notice them everywhere. And you may never look at a "Hey, listen to this" the same way again.
A bid is any attempt to get your partner's attention, affection, interest, or support.
Sometimes bids are obvious: "Can we talk?" or "Will you hold me?"
Most of the time, they're tiny and almost invisible:
On the surface, these are about birds, bosses, and memes. Underneath, each one is asking the same quiet question:
"Are you with me? Do you care about what I care about?"
In his book The Relationship Cure, Gottman describes three basic ways people respond when their partner makes a bid.
You acknowledge the bid and engage with it, even briefly.
"Look at that bird." β "Oh wow, is that a cardinal?"
It doesn't have to be enthusiastic or long. A look, a smile, a "huh, cool" is still turning toward. The message received is: I see you.
You ignore the bid or miss it entirely, usually not on purpose.
"Look at that bird." β (keeps scrolling)
This is the most common way bids get lost, and the most underestimated. Nobody fought. Nobody said anything mean. But a small door closed.
You respond with irritation, criticism, or dismissal.
"Look at that bird." β "Can you stop interrupting me? I'm trying to work."
Turning against tells your partner that reaching out to you is risky.
In one of Gottman's best-known studies, he and his colleagues observed newlywed couples spending time together in an apartment-style lab, and paid close attention to how they responded to each other's bids.
Six years later, the researchers checked in. The difference was striking:
Think about that. Not the big arguments. Not the anniversaries. The bird comments.
Gottman's explanation is intuitive: every time you turn toward your partner, you make a small deposit in what he calls an emotional bank account. Those deposits build trust, goodwill, and a sense of being on the same side. When conflict arrives, and it always does, couples with a healthy balance give each other the benefit of the doubt. Couples running on empty assume the worst.
In other words, the way you handle the small moments shapes how you'll handle the big ones.
If you're mentally counting the bids you've missed this week, take a breath. Turning away is rarely a sign of indifference. It's usually a sign of being human.
Here's why it happens so often.
Phones, laptops, notifications, a TV that's always on. It's hard to notice a sigh from across the room when a screen is asking for your attention every thirty seconds. Many of the bids we miss aren't rejected; they simply never reach us. That's one of the reasons we love the idea of phone-free dates: they clear the noise so bids can land.
After a long day, our capacity to engage shrinks. A comment that would have sparked a fun conversation on Saturday gets a grunt on Wednesday night. Stress doesn't make us love our partner less. It makes us less available.
Not every bid sounds like an invitation. Some sound like complaints.
"You never ask how my day was."
That's a criticism. But it's also a bid, a clumsy one, that really means: "I want you to be interested in my day." Responding only to the criticism ("That's not true!") misses the request hiding inside it.
Other disguised bids include sarcasm, teasing, small talk about logistics, or simply hanging around in the same room as you.
Some people bid loudly and often. Others bid rarely and subtly, maybe by making you tea without being asked, or by sitting a little closer. If your partner is a quiet bidder, you may be missing more than you realize.
The first step is simply awareness. For a few days, try paying attention to these signals:
You'll probably notice that your partner reaches for you far more often than you thought. That's a beautiful thing to see.
Turning toward doesn't mean dropping everything every time your partner speaks. It means acknowledging the bid in some way. Here's what that can look like.
Eye contact. A smile. "Ha, that's great." "Oh no, really?" Small responses count. Gottman's research suggests it's the consistent acknowledgment, not the intensity, that matters most.
There's a big difference between ignoring a bid and postponing it kindly.
"I really want to hear about it. Give me ten minutes to finish this email and I'm all yours."
That's still turning toward. The key is to actually come back in ten minutes.
If the bid is emotional, a sigh or a "rough day," ask a question instead of offering a solution:
"That sounded like a heavy sigh. What's going on?"
You don't have to fix anything. Being interested is the response.
Instead of defending yourself against "You never ask how my day was," try responding to the need underneath: "You're right, I've been distracted. How was your day? I really want to know."
It can feel counterintuitive. It's also one of the fastest ways to soften a tense moment.
Connection goes both ways. If you often feel unseen, it may be worth looking at how you bid, not only at how your partner responds.
And when your partner does turn toward you? Notice it. Say thank you. Appreciation is a bid too, and one of the easiest to answer.
If you'd like to put this into practice, try this simple experiment together.
Days 1β2: Just notice. Each of you quietly pays attention to the bids the other makes. Don't change anything yet. Just observe how often your partner reaches out, and how.
Days 3β5: Turn toward on purpose. Make a conscious effort to respond to every bid you notice, even with a smile or a single sentence. Put your phone face down when your partner starts talking.
Day 6: Create a daily ritual. Choose one moment of the day dedicated to connection: the first ten minutes after you both get home, a coffee before work, a short walk after dinner. Rituals create guaranteed space for bids. Our ideas for reunion rituals for couples and a morning routine for couples are great places to start.
Day 7: Talk about it. Share what you noticed. Some questions to guide the conversation:
Couples are often surprised by the answers. One partner learns that the meme with no caption was a way of saying "thinking of you." The other learns that a hand on the shoulder while they work means more than a long conversation.
Every couple misses bids. But if you've been turning toward and reaching out for a while, and your partner almost never responds, that matters.
Over time, repeatedly ignored bids can lead to something Gottman's work describes clearly: people stop bidding. They stop sharing the funny story or the bad news. Not because they don't care, but because they've learned it won't land. That quiet withdrawal is often more dangerous to a relationship than loud conflict.
If this sounds familiar, try naming it calmly, outside of a stressful moment:
"I've noticed I often try to connect with you and it doesn't land. I don't think you mean it, but it's been making me feel lonely. Can we talk about it?"
If the pattern doesn't change, a couples counselor can help you both understand what's getting in the way. And if your partner regularly responds to your bids with contempt or mockery, that's a warning sign worth taking seriously. Our guide on how to know if you're in a healthy relationship can help you reflect.
We tend to measure relationships by their highlights: the proposal, the trip, the grand anniversary dinner. Those moments matter.
But the foundation of a relationship is built somewhere much less glamorous. In the kitchen. On the couch. In the car. In a hundred tiny exchanges a week that seem too small to count.
"Look at that bird."
"Oh, it's beautiful."
That's what love looks like most days. And it turns out, it's what helps love last. For more research-backed habits like this one, see what makes a relationship last.
A bid for connection is any attempt to get your partner's attention, interest, affection, or support. It can be a question, a comment, a joke, a touch, a sigh, or even a complaint. The term comes from relationship researcher John Gottman, who found that how partners respond to these small moments strongly predicts relationship satisfaction.
Common examples include "Look at this," sharing a story about your day, sending a funny video, asking "Do you want to come with me?", reaching for your partner's hand, sighing loudly, or asking for help with something small. Even criticism like "You never listen" can hide a bid for attention.
Turning toward means noticing and responding to your partner's bid in a positive or interested way. It can be as simple as eye contact, a smile, or a short reply. Turning away means ignoring or missing the bid, and turning against means responding with irritation or hostility.
It refers to Gottman's finding that newlywed couples who were still together six years later had turned toward each other's bids about 86% of the time, compared with about 33% for couples who later divorced. It doesn't mean you must respond perfectly, but that consistent responsiveness matters a lot.
Make your bids clearer and better timed, turn complaints into specific requests, and appreciate your partner when they do respond. If your bids are often missed, talk about it calmly and without blame. Many partners simply don't realize what they've been missing.
No. Every couple misses bids, especially when they're tired, stressed, or distracted. What matters is the overall pattern. Noticing more bids, responding even briefly, and kindly postponing when you're busy can make a real difference over time.
You don't need a perfect relationship to have a strong one. You need two people who keep reaching for each other, and who keep reaching back.
Bids for connection are the smallest units of love. They're easy to miss and easy to dismiss. But turned toward, again and again, they become trust. And trust is what carries a couple through everything else.
Next time your partner says "look at this," look. It might be the most important thing you do all day.
What's your partner's favorite way of reaching out to you? A meme, a song, a hug from behind? Tell us in the comments π
Research note: This article draws on John Gottman's research on bids for connection, described inThe Relationship Cure (John Gottman and Joan DeClaire, 2001), and on the Gottman Institute's article Turn Toward Instead of Away. The content is educational and is not a substitute for personalized mental health or relationship support.
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