Fall in Love with Someone

Practice of the Week
Fall in Love with Someone


Try this with your spouse -- or a prospective spouse. Or try it with any friend if the two of you are game for being drawn closer together. It's a remarkably effective procedure for two people to develop closeness in a about an hour or two. For people on a first date, the process almost always makes them feel better about each other and want to see each other again.

There are two parts. First, there a series of 36 questions for each of you to take a turn answering. The questions start out fairly impersonal, but gradually draw out more and more of you. Each question builds a sense of safe sharing to facilitate subsequent questions. This part by itself will take an hour or two -- depending on how much detail your answers go into.

The second part will take exactly four minutes.
Arthur Aron of the Interpersonal Relationships Lab at Stony Brook University in New York developed this exercise and tested it on a number of pairs. His results are published in "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (1997). Aron's list of 36 questions is in a "Psychology Today" web posting: CLICK HERE.

Part 1. Take turns answering these 36 questions, in order:




4. What would constitute a perfect day for you?










14. Is there something that you've dreamt of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it?

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

17. What is your most treasured memory?

18. What is your most terrible memory?


20. What does friendship mean to you?





25. Make three true "we" statements each. For instance, "we are both in this room feeling..."

26. Complete this sentence "I wish I had someone with whom I could share..."











Part 2. Set a timer for four minutes. Stare into each others' eyes for four minutes. It's OK to blink, but don't look away.

For Journaling

Reflect on the experience. Which answer of your partner's was most striking or memorable? Are you surprised that you said some of the things you did? What did prolonged looking into each other's eyes feel like?

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