Getting to Know Your Partner

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Getting to know your partner by asking hard, idiosyncratic questions is the key. If you have five friends who all know each other, it starts to become a community. There is an tremendous added value in communities and groups that even with the same number of people on a one off basis can't add. And we really need to think about how to build that back in.

Eric Barker is not a people person. “Getting me to write a relationship book,” he says, “is like asking Godzilla to improve the infrastructure in your city.” But he did it anyway. Guided by leading social psychologists, Eric went on a journey to understand what he was getting wrong about relationships — and what he could do to turn things around. The result is “Plays Well With Others,” a guide to friendship, intimacy, loneliness, and belonging that our curator Daniel Pink says will “revitalize your life.”

THIS AND THAT:

Check out Eric’s blog, “Barking Up the Wrong Tree”

Try out Arthur Aron’s intimacy building questions

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