A few years ago, this Modern Love column by Mandy Len Catron offered a step-by-step protocol for intimacy: It was titled, “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This.” The process was based on the work of psychologist Arthur Aron, who in this paper provides procedures for “the experimental generation of interpersonal closeness.” Aron’s aim was not to help people achieve intimacy; rather it was to “make being in a relationship accessible to laboratory study and experimental manipulation.” Apparently it is hard to isolate the “independent variables” in those relationships that manage to begin without lab technicians’ intervention and supervision.