Grab a partner — friend, lover or stranger — and get ready to get intimate.

With this app, drawn from a study discussed in The New York Times and designed in consultation with the study's first author, you and a partner can test if mutual vulnerability brings you closer together.

Before you begin, you or your partner should read the following instructions aloud:

For each question, one of us should read the prompt aloud, and then we should each take a turn answering before moving on. It is important to answer each question, in order. The questions are divided into three sets. Each set lasts 15 minutes. After the third set of questions, there is an optional final task. We should not rush through the questions but answer each at a normal, conversational pace. We probably won’t get to all 12 questions in each set, and that’s perfectly O.K.

For inspiration, read Mandy Len Catron's Modern Love essay, “To Fall In Love With Anyone, Do This,” the study by Arthur Aron, Edward Melinat, Elaine N. Aron, Robert Darrin Vallone and Renee J. Bator, originally published in the Personality and Social Psychology Journal (PDF) and a blog post on how the study came to be.