Lately, God’s been teaching me a lot about how important listening is in a romantic relationship. In fact, there’s good evidence that listening doesn’t just help a couple stay in love, it’s a key factor in helping people fall in love!
Earlier in the year, when I was writing Forget Paris, Love in Store book 4, a friend sent me this New York Times article, To Fall In Love With Anyone, Do This. I’d already written a draft of the story, but the process discussed in the article was exactly what my anti-romance psychologist heroine needed to use to try to prove her point!
Back in the 1990’s, social psychology researcher Arthur Aron wanted a way to create a sense of intimacy between people in the psych lab, so he could study how feelings of closeness affected other psychological tests. The aim wasn’t to make people fall in love, yet it did happen! One marriage and a number of lasting friendships came out of that first experiment. And Mandy Len Catron, who wrote the NYT article about her experience trying the process, also fell in love.
When the article published, a lot of newspapers and websites ran a list of Dr Aron’s questions, and treated it like some sort of magic formula to make anyone fall in love with anyone. But what creates the sense of intimacy isn’t just the questions, the way they make people think about what they value in a relationship, and the gradually increasing level of self disclosure they require.
The closeness happens because of the way that the person asking the question needs to ask, then stay quiet and listen. No interrupting. No giving advice. No, “Oh yes, that happened to me too….” Only listening. Then once the person speaking has finished, they ask the question, and listen in their turn.
If you’re interested to try the process, you can use the questions listed below with just about anyone you’d like to feel closer to; friends, family members, or of course your sweetheart or a potential sweetheart! The only requirements are a willingness to answer honestly, and a willingness to listen.
Just watch out though! Like Zoe in Forget Paris, you too might find yourself falling deeper in love than you expected!
American graduate student Zoe Gallagher doesn’t believe in romance. She’s in Paris on Valentine’s Day doing research to prove that romance is an illusion and love based on it doesn’t last. When she meets Gabe Ross, there to fulfil his mother’s dying wish by placing a lovelock on a bridge crossing the River Seine, even she finds it hard to resist the most romantic city in the world on the most romantic day of the year. An impulsive challenge to try a psychological experiment feels like more, much more, for both of them. Zoe tells herself their one wonderful day together proves nothing. But on her return to London, she discovers she needs Gabe’s help to learn the biggest lesson of all, that love does last. Especially God’s love….
Arthur Aron’s Closeness Generating Procedure
Each of you should take a turn answering each question:
1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?
3. Before making a phone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say? Why?
4. What would constitute a perfect day for you?
5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
6. 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 choose?
7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
11. Take four minutes and tell you partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?
13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed 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?
19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
20. What does friendship mean to you?
21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?
22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.
23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?
24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?
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…”
27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.
28. Tell your partner what you like about them: be honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.
29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.
30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.
32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
33. 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?
34. 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?
35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?
36. 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.
USA Today bestselling author Autumn Macarthur writes romances full of faith and hope, celebrating God's love as well as a man and a woman finding their happily ever after. She prays they’ll warm your heart and make you smile. An Australian transplanted to Britain, Autumn lives just north of London with her lovely English husband and three demanding cats, in a very small house with a teensy tiny garden. She loves talking to readers, so please get in touch! And get a free Christian romance novella when you sign up for her reader newsletter at http://bit.ly/Autumnsubscribe
Thanks for the thought provoking blog on love. So often in American society the concept of love is overused and used lightly. We love pizza or the that cute pair of shoes. We fall in love with everything and anyone. Arthur Aron’s questions point out that love is a choice. Love is patient. Love is kind. That is what makes a relationship last and especially a marriage. Having experienced a house fire and seeing the wild fires in the west, there is no time to save anything except one’s own life and one’s loved onesand pets. Question 34 might be better put “in case of a disaster (fire, hurricane, earthquake, tornado) what item would you be thankful that survived. Great list of to generate thoughtful discussions.
Love this, Autumn. Sometimes it’s so much harder to listen than to speak, but listening – and really hearing – is so important to any relationship. (I’ll admit I need to be better about this when my son drones on about Mine craft. It’s important to him. Even if it makes me want to run screaming.) :)
Thanks for reading and commenting, Renate!
You are so right. Remembering that love is a choice is essential. It’s not something that “just happens” but something we need to keep choosing, over and over again to keep love alive in our relationships. Whether that’s choosing to accept God’s love, or choosing to accept the challenges of staying in love with our spouse, family, and friends. :)
Hugs on the house fire, that would be a huge thing to deal with.
LOL on the Minecraft, Elizabeth! With my nephew, it was Lego!
Yep, I’m really learning what a gift we give to others when we really listen. I can see how much my husband responds to me having made a conscious choice to slow down and sit down to hear him, instead of keeping on multi-tasking like I used to.
Of course, the catch is, I’m getting way less writing done, but having a happier healthier husband is more important! The unexpected gift for me in it is that I feel closer to him now, too. Falling back in love with the man I married is fun!
I love the idea of these questions and thought of using them in a story. (Would that be a new trope? LOL!) Shortly after coming across them, I read Forget Paris and loved the way you handled the questions in it. Loved the whole book actually.
But yes, listening. I’ve found myself looking at my husband when he says something — while continuing to finish the sentence I was typing in a story, blog post, or even a private message. Thanks for the reminder to set the laptop aside completely at times like that! He is much more valuable than that.
Thanks Valerie! I’m glad you liked Forget Paris.
It was perfect timing for me, that article appearing. I’d done the draft but knew the meet needed a lot more. Though in the end I skipped over much of their answers (it could have been a VERY long book if I’d included them all!), the experiment was just what my characters needed.
Listening, yep! It’s understandable when we are so busy that we keep multi-tasking. But my husband has shown how much difference the simple thing of giving him my full attention can make :)
Interesting questions, I will have to read them indepth.
I didn’t read all of the questions, but it came to me that these would be AWESOME questions to ask our characters to learn about them. :)
I thought the same thing, Ginger! Digs a bit deeper than “What is your favourite ice cream flavour?” Though of course, that’s important too ;)
It does take time to really answer them, Linda. It’s easy to see why in the experiments, the subjects tasked with spending 90 minutes together listening to each other’s answers felt close by the end of it!
I love these questions. I am going to keep this list handy and choose one or two for members of my family, besides my husband. The whole concept of really listening is so important – isn’t that what’s wrong with the world right now? As you are talking, I am thinking about what I will say … instead of listening. Thanks for sharing!
Hmmm, I have a first date tomorrow. Maybe I’ll take along this list and spring it on him. What do you think? :)
LOL! Worth a try, Lee ;)
As the author of the NYT article said, it only works if the person is willing to fall in love. But it could possibly be a way to check out how willing someone is to be emotionally intimate. Maybe not on the first date!
Have a lovely time!
Ah yes, the art of listening! It seems society has lost that ability to REALLY listen…without interruption or thinking of your next response to the person, or, sadly, doing something else when someone is talking to you (texting, typing or reading?). When we do listen, we make that person feel like they are important & valued by us….as if they were the only person in the world at that moment. It can certainly draw two people closer, whether a spouse or significant other or even in friendships…or perhaps in a business relationship. I’ve heard said that God gave us two ears and one mouth so we’d listen more than talk :-) Thinking on scripture, even Jesus listened more (and still does!). And eye contact is just as important when talking or listening to someone. It helps your mind focus on them and not other things around you. There’s an intimacy in it too, a drawing of two minds and hearts, a non-verbal kinship if you will! I am guilty of not looking someone in the eye sometimes, definitely something I need to work on!
Thanks for the reminder today, Autumn! I need to be more diligent in this area of my life :-) I know it will make the other person feel good & in the end, for me too! A double blessing :-)
“A double blessing” – that’s just what I’ve found since I’ve tried to listen more consciously and attentively.
I love how you described this- “When we do listen, we make that person feel like they are important & valued by us….as if they were the only person in the world at that moment.” It’s excatly what’s needed. Not always easy, of course, but a good goal.
You are so right. Listening is a lost art. All too often I hear people around me inturrupting each other while answering a question. I am going to share the questions with my family.
I hope you and your family find it a valuable experience! :)
Autumn, great post! It was fascinating to read all the questions behind the psychological experiment in Forget Paris :)
Thanks Narelle :) I found the whole thing about experimenters needing a tool to help people build intimacy purely for research fascinating!
And LOL, I just realised, now that the heroine of that story has decided to train as a marriage counsellor, she’ll probably give couples she’s working with the questions as an assignment!