exaggeration to say that this is the fundamental ability required in creating closeness. At its core, self-disclosing means openness and honesty, as well as a desire to share a range of information about oneself — both factual and subjective.
A factual disclosure could be as simple as revealing you’re from Michigan. A subjective disclosure would include telling the other person how you feel about being from Michigan. What was your favorite part of growing up there? Do you like going back?
These subjective disclosures can be easy to overlook, since we’re trained from school and work situations to focus on remembering the facts. While the facts are important, the feelings behind the facts are more important in creating closeness. Most people will tell anyone where they’re from. But they will only tell a potential confidante how they feel about where they’re from.
As well-known social psychologist Harry Reis described in his theory of intimacy: “Although factual and emotional self-disclosures reveal personal information about oneself, emotional self-disclosures are considered to be more closely related to the experience of intimacy because they allow for the most core aspects of the self to be known, understood, and validated.”
Things to Notice
• Does he avoid answering personal questions?
• Does he create factual inconsistencies or tell full-blown lies?
• Does he use deflection or humor to avoid certain subjects?
Skill 2: The Ability to Reciprocate
The ability to reciprocate, as I define it, means being able both to give someone their moment and to take your own moment. Stated another way, it is the ability to let someone else be the focus (at certain moments) and also to let yourself be the focus (at other moments). The ability to reciprocate in this way matters because if one person in the relationship is always the center of attention, neglect and inequality become inevitable.
Those who struggle with reciprocating tend to gather at opposite ends of the spectrum: they are either very self-centered or very self-effacing. Neither of these extremes works well for creating closeness. An ideal partner would see interactions as something of a tennis match — lobbing the focus over to you and then actively swinging at it when it comes back her way.
Things to Notice
• Does she hog the conversation or talk as if you’re not there?
• Does she send a barrage of questions your way but answer few in return?
• Does the conversation feel forced?
Skill 3: The Ability to Accept New Information
Specifically, this means the other person should be able to accept new information about you. Early on, it’s natural for a person to develop a picture of who they think you are, but problems arise if that early picture becomes fixed. For closeness to flourish, the person you are getting to know must be able to reevaluate and reformulate his ideas about you regularly. In other words, if you reveal more about yourself over time yet find he doesn’t believe you because these disclosures don’t match his early idea of you, that’s a problem. That’s a red flag that he’s falling for a fantasy of you.
Anybody with whom you choose to create closeness should be able to let go of the mental construct of you he created before he knew you well.
Things to Notice
• Does he retain new information about you?
• Does he try to talk you out of what you’re saying about yourself?
• Is he making sweeping assumptions about you?
Skill 4: The Ability to Be Present
The ability to be present means being in the moment, focused on what’s happening here and now. It can be as simple as disconnecting from personal technology and giving full attention to your partner. But being present means much more than just being able to put down a phone. It means being willing to change with each moment.
In other words, a partner who is fixated on what has been in the past or what will be in the future is just that — fixated. She’s weighed down with baggage. She’s stuck in some other place and time . . . somewhere you can’t go. If you can’t both be here and now, closeness is unlikely to grow. Fundamentally, you will achieve knowing and caring through lots of little moments of being present with each other.
Things to Notice
• Does she make eye contact — one of the primary indicators of present engagement?
• Does she tend to redirect the conversation to past or future events?
• Does she use language that casts the conversations in the past or future — using words such as then and there instead of now and here?
Now let’s tackle the four caring skills.
Skill 1: The Ability to Feel and Express Emotions
This one is pretty self-explanatory. It’s impossible to get close to someone who either cannot feel feelings or cannot express them. Whether the other person is actually feeling can be very hard to determine from casual conversation, so I recommend focusing on whether she can express emotion.
Look for feeling language of any kind. “I love when this happens. . .” “I hate when I can’t . . .” Pay particular attention to any caring language around other people in her life. One sincere expression of love for another person in her life is an excellent sign.
Things to Notice
• Does he use feeling language?
• Does he use facial expressions and gestures to convey emotion?
• Does he have a flat affect or seem robotic?
Skill 2: The Ability to Respond Appropriately
The ability to respond appropriately is similar to the ability to reciprocate. It’s about being able to notice when your partner needs your attention and then giving her that attention. To respond appropriately is to give someone her moment on an emotional level.
As the social psychology literature describes, “Intimacy is initiated when one person communicates personally relevant and revealing information, thoughts, and feelings to another person. For intimacy processes to continue, the listener must emit emotions, expressions, and behaviors that are both responsive to the specific content of the disclosure and convey acceptance, validation, and caring for the individual disclosing. For the interaction to be experienced as intimate by the discloser, he or she must subjectively feel understood, validated, and cared for.”
This skill matters because picking someone who can respond to you appropriately is ultimately what will make you feel cared about in the relationship.
Things to Notice
• Does she respond emotionally in a way that feels good, such as holding your hand when you’re expressing fear or concern?
• Does she respond emotionally in a way that feels bad, such as
