I was with my friend late yesterday night. We were in his car and driving to memorial park to check out the park since neither of us had been there for a while. I was sitting in the passenger seat, and we were discussing about relationships. He briefly mentioned something that stood out in my mind. “You know how some relationships have one person who feels closer than the other?” At this point, he was not specific about which relationship he was talking about. He might have been talking about a previous relationship, a currently existing relationship, our relationship, or it could have just been a hypothetical relationship he was asking as a question. I really did not know if there was more to that brief question than to the extent where I implied it in my own mind. In my own mind, I knew he could have been talking about our relationship as he knows about my blog and mostly likely knows how much I have loved and appreciated him as a friend. After he posed that question, I remember thinking in my mind, “Hhmm, is he talking about our friendship?” It was the inevitable question that was going to be lurking deep down in the back of my mind. In the moment, I wanted to ask him if he was specifically talking about our relationship. Of course once I imagined myself asking that in my head, I felt a hesitation as if a part of me said, “don’t ask it in those words!” It is obvious to me now and even when I thought that, that asking him if he was specifically talking about our relationship, would have been too risky as I was afraid how he would answer. If he answered, “no, I’m not talking about us”, there would be a part of me that would feel like I put him in a tough situation and forced him to answer that way. In a way, if he answered like that, I would know it might not have been a completely truthful reply as he may have wanted to prevent me from feeling hurt. Regardless if he answered directly or indirectly, if his message was, “Yes, I was hinting at our relationship”, of course he would feel like an asshole for saying that and of course I would have felt hurt deep down.
As of right now, as I am thinking about it, I don’t question whether I should or should not ask him if he was referring to our relationship. I’m curious to know, but at the same time, there’s a deeper reason. In order to create emotional intimacy, it’s necessary to discuss about the relationship two people share with each other, and how the two of them are each affected by what they say to each other. To put it simple and concise, it’s necessary to talk about how we feel about the relationship and how we feel about things we say to each other. Talking about our relationship, understanding each other’s point of views of the relationship will actually bring us closer as long as both sides are honest and accept how both sides feel. Perhaps he truly does not feel as close to me as I do about him. Initially I would feel hurt that my depth of closeness and intimacy is not reciprocated by him. However, the more I think about this, the more grateful and appreciative I believe I would actually feel if this was the case. Firstly because honesty is a must to develop emotional intimacy. Secondly, because I can take his honest feedback and learn to improve to develop more intimacy. When I ask myself, is it a big possibility that he does not feel as close to me? To be very honest, it’s definitely possible. Self-disclosure about things more personal and emotional to me is my main weakness when it comes to communication. I know I have not expressed some of my own personal and painful past due to fear, hesitation, and opportunity. So when it comes to comparing to him, my self-disclosure abilities is definitely short in stature compared to his. Even from knowing this, I feel this is a good lesson that teaches me that developing the ability to gradually-escalate the depth of self-disclosure is as important to develop intimacy as being curious, asking the right questions, listening, and understanding are.
Perhaps his brief rhetorical question of, “You know how some relationships have one person who is closer to the other?”, was not meant to refer to our relationship. Perhaps I’m just completely over-blowing this entire charade in my mind. It still has taught me a lesson of the importance of appropriate self-disclosure. Appropriate self-disclosure is absolutely a necessity and there is something that currently confuses me as I type this. I found a website describing an experiment done that yielded amazing results of closeness and intimacy between people who had never met each other- I was googling around when I found this. In 1997, Psychologist Arthur Aron published a paper in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin on "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness". They wanted to know if they could create lab conditions that would make strangers quickly bond and form close friendships, even romantic engagements, after just a few minutes. Here is an excerpt from the website:
“They arranged volunteers in pairs, and gave them a list of 36 questions that, one by one, they were both asked to answer openly over an hour "in a kind of sharing game". Even before the hour was up, respondents typically said they felt unusually close to the person they had shared questions with.”
David Rowan, the author of the article I found, simulated Arthur Aron’s “fast friends” experiment with worldly senior executives and entrepreneurs. Here is more from the website that details the steps and results:
“
I found my opportunity at WPP's recent Stream conference in Athens… “Take part in a psychological experiment, and make friends fast,” I scribbled on the whiteboard where session hosts competed for delegates' attention. The brave 18 people curious enough to show up discovered that this was no false advertising: the experiment really did promote incredibly fast bonding.
Like Aron, I paired the high-achieving entrepreneurs, investors, editors and executives to answer 36 questions. And like Dr Aron's participants, mine were told that their task, which sounded fun, was "simply to get close to your partner" over an hour. They were given the questions, printed out in order, and told that both partners should answer each of them in turn.
The questions began simply enough:
- Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
- Would you like to be famous? In what way?
- Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
- What would constitute a "perfect" day for you?
- When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
- If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?
- Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
- Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
- For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
Gradually, the questions became more probing and personal:
- If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
- Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
- If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
- If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?
- Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it?
- What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
Finally, as the hour approached, the questions pressed the pair on their deeper life values:
- What do you value most in a friendship?
- What is your most treasured memory?
- What is your most terrible memory?
- If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
- What does friendship mean to you?
- What roles do love and affection play in your life?
- Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.
- How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people's?
- How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?
- Make three true "we" statements each. For instance "We are both in this room feeling..."
- Complete this sentence: "I wish I had someone with whom I could share..."
- If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.
- Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time saying things that you might not say to someone you've just met.
- Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.
- When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
- Tell your partner something that you like about them already.
- What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
- If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet?
- Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?
- Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?
- Share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.
I also used a few deliciously probing variants on the original questions, including these from a similar study:
- If you could choose the sex and physical appearance of your soon-to-be-born child, would you do it?
- Would you be willing to have horrible nightmares for a year if you would be rewarded with extraordinary wealth?
- While on a trip to another city, your spouse (or lover) meets and spends a night w/ an exciting stranger. Given they will never meet again, and you will not otherwise learn of the incident, would you want your partner to tell you about it?
In the original experiment, researchers created a control group where questions were based around small-talk -- far less emotionally probing questions such as:
- What gifts did you receive last Christmas/Hanukkah?
- What foreign country would you most like to visit? What attracts you to this place?
In the original 1997 "fast friends" experiment, even before the hour was up, participants in the main group typically identified strong feelings of closeness with their partner, often exchanging contact details and indicating a wish to meet up again. This was far pronounced than members of the control group that paired up to engage in small-talk.
Lo and behold, most participants in my Stream study reported experiencing an intense feeling of having bonded with their experiment partner within 45 minutes. "We certainly became very close in an extremely short period of time," one participant said; another said with surprise that she had revealed things that not even her boyfriend knew. Some pairs of new friends were still taking two hours later.
"I'm glad it worked so well, and I was happy to hear the procedure has been applied in such a real world setting," Arthur Aron said when I shared the results with him. "The effect is based not just on reciprocal self-disclosure, but on gradually escalating reciprocal self-disclosure." In the original experiment, he said, "we also tested an intense version of this with cross-sex couples - and the first ones we tested fell in love and got married. And as of last year, when I last had contact with them, they were still together."
The study also produces similar results when pairs are of different races and people in professional groups you might think would struggle to find much in common, he said. "We've used the method with cross-race groups, and other cross-group pairs like community members and police, with great effects -- not just at creating closeness within each pair, but that closeness extending to more positive attitudes towards the partner's group as a whole."
The original 1997 paper pondered what was happening. "So are we producing real closeness? Yes and no," the authors wrote. "We think that the closeness produced in these studies is experienced as similar in many important ways to felt closeness in naturally occurring relationships that develop over time. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that the procedure produces loyalty, dependence, commitment, or other relationship aspects that might take longer to develop."
"
Courtesy to http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-11/08/how-to-find-love-in-45-mins?page=all
Phew! That’s a huge chunk of the article right there. I found and read this article on December 1, 2011 at 10:26 pm according to my Opera bookmark. This article really gives me insight to why asking the right questions can lead to emotional intimacy. The one thing that does confuse me is that I know there are times where too much self-disclosure, too fast can cause distance in a relationship. This is evidenced by another article I have found online written by Dr. Steve Frisch who has a Psy. D and works as a clinical psychologist in Chicago:
“
Appropriate self-disclosure has five components. These five components are:
1.) BREADTH: the amount of information being disclosed
2.) DEPTH: the intimacy of the information
3.) DURATION: the amount of time spent in self-disclosure
4) TARGET PERSON: who you’re talking to
5) SITUATION: the conditions under which the disclosure is made
There are appropriate and inappropriate ways to create openness in a relationship. A woman came to me years ago and described a friend who was difficult to be around. “Sometimes my friend just sits there and talks,” the woman said. “The things she says are very personal, very personal. And they are always about her. Most of the time I blush. In fact, you wouldn’t hear those things from other people.”
She folded her hands uncomfortably, “I don’t even know how to do some of those things, do you know what I mean?” she leaned toward me and talked softly. “My friend says things that seem outrageous, but she treats them as if they are normal table conversation. Now I am only going to write letters with her so I can blush in private!”
It is important to know why you are disclosing what you are disclosing. That is, don’t let self-disclosure become an end in itself. As we talked earlier, if you disclose to others, they will tend to reciprocate. If this mutuality does not develop, then self-disclosure is not being done in an appropriate way. Without a doubt, relationships are more effective if self-disclosure is mutual.
" Courtesy to http://www.aliveandwellnews.com/web%20books/bridges/chapter_4.shtml
The main difference between the results of Arthur Aron’s experiment and that of the conversation of the blushing woman is that the circumstances for the blushing woman violated the breadth, depth, and situation under which the disclosure was made. I don’t actually know the blushing woman so I can’t say if I think she is a good person to talk intimately with. Perhaps she is not a good “target person”. I think one of the most important lessons from reading the second article is that, “It is important to know why you are disclosing what you are disclosing”. In other words, if you are going to self-disclose about something, make it relevant to the situation/ conversation topic and be mindful of the amount of depth you disclose. Making a topic relevant in a conversation can be very simple. When one conversation topic seems to be low on fuel, simply pose a question that allows you to talk about the topic of what you want to disclose. For example, “You know, there are many times where I feel…” or “Have you ever…”. For the breadth and depth we disclose, the thoughts we have that are dark and feel a bit inappropriate to disclose probably are until there is more comfort and familiarity in the relationship. It’s important to trust our gut instinct. If we feel something may be too over-bearing to disclose currently, it may very well be. But at the same time, it’s important to be able to decipher the difference between inappropriate disclosure for the time being, and that of fear of intimacy. Fear of intimacy stops us from disclosing enough while a feeling of over-bearing self-disclosure can scare the other person off completely. I actually have a story to tell about that.
Back in 7th grade I had pre-algebra class during 6th period. Back then, I didn’t initiate conversations with attractive girls and even if they did say something to me, my brain locked up to the point and I would have trouble continuing the conversation. I would simply respond to their question, become self-conscious, and felt deep down that they wanted nothing to do with me. My image of how I looked with glasses was one of the main causes for my low self esteem and self-consciousness. It got to the point where I was not wearing my glasses at school in 6th grade, but that’s a story for another day. Point being, I was not good with girls even though I liked girls. Close to about a month left of 7th grade, the teacher had a seating change and I ended up sitting next to a not so attractive Indian girl on the very side of the room. The desks were separate from the rows of desks where the majority of other students sat so it was only my desk and hers side by side. Every day as I entered the pre-algebra classroom, and put down my bag, I would walk over to the shelf to get the textbooks since we needed them each class. Since our two tables were separate from others, I thought I would just get two books so she wouldn’t need to make a trip. I did it out of pure thoughtfulness, nothing else. We talked a bit every class, usually about the math problems, homework, and quizzes or tests. If she asked for help on a math problem I would show her how to do it, assuming I knew how. Then on the second to last day of school, I was excited to get school over with, just as anybody else. I was just about to sit down in my chair when she hands me an envelope and tells me to open it when I get home. To be honest, I really did not know what it was. The idea that it could be a note about something personal crossed my mind, but I felt like we did not have anything going on. I truly thought the envelope was more likely to have money inside than contain something personal. Without thinking too much about it, I just stuck the envelope in my backpack and zipped it up. Being the second to last day, we didn’t have anything to do so I went to hang out with a “friend” of mine at the time- I quote the word friend because he is no longer someone I would get involved with nowadays. The thought of what was in the envelope crossed my mind several times when I was sitting there as my friend talked to others. The more I thought about it, the more I felt the envelope contained something personal. Perhaps a little too personal. When I got home, I closed the door to my room, opened my bag and took out the envelope. I was curious but also a little nervous what I would find inside. I opened it up and I took out a letter. The letter was folded into thirds so I opened it up. I read it. I was shocked and surprised- although I probably saw it coming, the more I thought about it. My eyes just stared looking at the letter in my hands. I just could not believe it as I read it again. There was no laughing, no smile on my face. My eyebrows were furrowed. I felt like the hairs on my skin were standing up. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but she confessed she had a lot of feelings for me. She mentioned how nice I was and how she hoped that I would not reject her as she said he had been hurt many times in the past. She gave me her gmail, wanting me to stay in touch with her. The letter was written neatly. I could tell she had taken the time to write the letter. I could tell my hands were close to shaking as when there is anxiety during a presentation. I was terrified. Then the thought of having to see her again on the very last day of school terrorized my mind. Luckily I was able to convince my mom with the help of my brother that it wasn’t necessary to go to school on the last day because no one did anything.
Thinking back on what happened, it’s obvious to me that she must have really felt touched by my small acts of kindness. She probably really wanted me to know how she felt and hoped I reciprocated those feelings. What she did took courage and was vulnerable. In a sense, I took the coward’s way out. I never emailed her to tell her what I thought, and did not have a class with her until junior year of high school. In the few times where we were members of the same group for a project in Spanish class junior year, it still felt a bit awkward even though more than three years had gone by. When I did have to talk to her, I treated it as if she had never given me that letter. Plus, she did not seem to have those same feelings for me anymore which made the times when we were members of the same group less awkward. I know I probably made her feel very hurt by not responding through email after she handed me that envelope. I hope karma doesn’t come back to bite me on that one. Through this lesson, I’ve come to learn an important lesson that I would eventually corroborate from studying programs of dating gurus. You must not, must not reveal your feelings for someone until you can say with a great amount of certainty, that what you feel in the relationship is at least reciprocated to a strong degree by the other. If she has no idea that you like her, and you confess your feelings, it will scare her away for good, and vice versa as gender doesn't matter. It is a guaranteed way to nail the coffin shut. Now if she does like you back, well then you got something going then. The amount of self-disclosure depends on the situation. If there is relevance to the situation, whether naturally or intentionally brought up, self-disclosure is more appropriate as demonstrated by Arthur Aron’s “fast friends” experiment. When there is meaning to bring up some self-disclosure, it won’t be perceived as weird. With strangers or the very beginning of a relationship, do not express how much you love them, if you do, and do not verbally or nonverbally communicate neediness and a need for their commitment. When strong feelings such as love are not reciprocated by both sides, confessing them is equivalent to playing with fire and dynamite.
