To Charm and Make Friends Fast: Share, Don't Overshare

To Charm and Make Friends Fast: Share, Don't Overshare
To establish closeness between strangers, relationship researchers use a technique in which two people disclose information about themselves gradually and reciprocally.


By ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN
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Carla Madrigal knew nobody in Seattle when she moved there last year after 38 years in San Francisco. She wanted to make new friends. "It was pretty devastating to be so anonymous," the 68-year-old artist says.



Dave Klug

The Start of a Beautiful Friendship: The early stages of a relationship are the time to take advantage of a technique used in research to establish closeness between strangers. The key is gradual self-disclosure.

To meet people, Ms. Madrigal made herself get out of the house every day. She joined a gym and a community garden, took yoga classes and visited a teahouse. And although she considers herself a shy person, she struck up conversations on the bus and at the grocery.

But she still had trouble making lasting relationships. Many people were nice, but she had nothing in common with them. Others resisted getting close.

Then two months ago, Ms. Madrigal was in a store when a woman complimented her hair. They began to chat and discovered that they both liked to work with textiles and to write. After a few minutes, Ms. Madrigal took a risk: "Would you like to come over to my house for coffee … now?" she asked.

The woman accepted her invite—and the two are now close pals.

"I thought all friendships had to be 'slow cooking,' taking years of experiencing life together," Ms. Madrigal says. "This experience was a marvelous revelation."

Is it possible to forge an intimate friendship quickly?

Research psychologists say yes. To study friendship in the lab, many use a protocol called "Fast Friends," which helps strangers establish "interpersonal closeness" in 45 minutes. The key? Both subjects need to gradually disclose personal information.

Here's how it works: Researchers give people working in pairs three sets of 12 questions written on index cards. The questions must be answered in order, with partners taking turns answering each question.

Questions in the first set are only slightly personal ("Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say?" "When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?"). In the second set, they are a little more personal ("What is your most terrible memory?" "Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it?"). The last set is personal ("When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?" "Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find the most disturbing?"). Each set of questions also includes a relationship-building exercise ("Tell your partner what you like about them").

The point is to build connection gradually, even if it's happening in a 45-minute window.

"You want to be slow and reciprocal," says Arthur Aron, professor of psychology at Stony Brook University, in New York, who developed the protocol. "If you disclose too much too fast, you put someone off."

Not sure how to find the sweet spot between disclosing too little and disclosing too much? Remember how badly you wanted to get off the plane the last time someone in the next seat downloaded way too much information.

Oversharing is often seen as one-sided, overwhelming and socially inappropriate, Dr. Aron says. How can you tell if you are doing it? The other person may seem tense, fidgety or at a loss for words.

The Fast Friends technique can be used to improve business connections, relationships between neighbors and romantic bonds, Dr. Aron says.

Researchers have used it when studying how to create closeness between individuals of different ethnic backgrounds and between groups that often distrust each other (for example, police officers and residents of low-income neighborhoods).

I've made great friends quickly while condo hunting, waiting in line to vote and interviewing people for this column. Of course, not every effort has been a success. There's a special spark or chemistry that has to be there. When I meet someone I think I might like to know better, my secret is to share something about myself that is both personal and maybe a little embarrassing or self-deprecating (I often tell people that I am divorced.) That tends to spark their curiosity and open them up.

I made one of the best friendships of my life over just one lunch. I was stressed and confused about an encounter I'd had the night before with a man I'd just met but really liked. My lunch companion was a social psychologist, luckily for me, whose research I thought I might want to write about. Before we'd even ordered, I asked him if I could get his opinion on something personal, but told him I would only feel comfortable sharing if he would then tell me something about himself. That lunch became the beginning of many hours of mutual support and laughter.

"The only way to establish intimacy is to be willing to open up about yourself," says David Bakke, 46, an editor at a personal-finance website. "Once both parties see an initial connection, it's quite easy to open up about more intimate details." One of Mr. Bakke's closest friends, he says, is a former co-worker, a man almost 15 years his junior who became a friend within a matter of days. Although some of his colleagues teased him about the age difference, Mr. Bakke says, he values the friendship because the two can talk about both work and personal issues.

When Ms. Madrigal's new friend, Susan Hanover, 61, came to her house on the day they met, they talked about art and their creative projects. "The more she talked about herself, the more I realized she is like me," Ms. Madrigal says.

Before long, Ms. Hanover hinted about a sad time in her own life. Then Ms. Madrigal shared a story she doesn't often tell, about the end of her first marriage and how she had to rebuild her life afterward. The sharing, Ms. Madrigal says, was "careful … a conscious kind of building thing."

Ms. Hanover calls her friendship with Ms. Madrigal "an unexpected gift. The sharing and spontaneity is mutually beneficial," she says.

It has been exciting, Ms. Madrigal says, to discover she could make a deep friendship so quickly. "I learned that life can be shared in the moment and be just as alive as if it had been experienced together," she says.

Getting to Know You

Relationship researchers use these questions as part of the 'fast friends' protocol, which helps establish a feeling of closeness between strangers in about 45 minutes. While it might be awkward to start a dinner-party conversation with a question like these, they illustrate how two individuals mutually revealing information a little at a time can build a friendship

• 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?

• When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

• Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

• If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

• If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

Source: Arthur Aron, Stony Brook University