How to Get to Know Someone Well

Video Transcript

"Friends can say the darnedest things. How to get to know someone well. This is Doctor Paul, host of Ask Doctor Paul and author of Boomer Girls: A Boomer Woman's Guide to Men and Dating. What I said about friends, I meant. Don't ask your friends to get to know someone well, ask the person and then watch the language, the body language. To get to know someone well requires you to ask questions, and the questions need to be open ended questions. Who, what, why, where, when and how. Now you don't drill people. You don't light the bright lights and tell them, now you will answer my questions. You're not the Gestapo. You are going to stand there and listen to what they say and watch what they say, not only listen to them, but listen at them. Okay. People like to open up, especially when you ask them how they feel about something. How did you feel about that event in your life, well in psychology we do that all the time. And people open up, because they want to express their feelings. So how do you get to know someone well? You ask them how they feel about a particular thing that occurred to them and they will open up, and then you'll be able to understand where they're coming from. They may tell you about their kids, they may tell you about their pets, they may tell you about their parents, they may tell you about their exes, whatever it is, when you ask them and you start nodding, smiling and do some active listening, that's when you're going to get the result you want. This is Doctor Paul, may your fantasies of today be your realities of tomorrow."