Certificate of Closeness Friction Bureau of Relationships
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Certificate of Closeness Friction

to be completed in your own hand

Processing time: 5 min Items: 20

No sign-up. Issued the same day.

This certificate is issued based on a 20-item questionnaire and certifies how much friction the bearer’s habits create in close relationships. You will receive a classification, the supporting record, and remarks. Processing time is 5 minutes. Answers draw on how you remember acting in each situation.

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Situation: Someone close forgot an errand they promised to run, and you raise it. Your wording?
Someone close says you left their message unanswered for days. What is your first reply?
A conversation about money is getting heated. What do you do next?
Describe what you say when a friend cancels plans on short notice and you are annoyed.
Your first attempt to settle where to spend the holidays did not work. Select the closest option.
Someone you have grown close to gives you a key to their place. Your course of action?
You have had a rough day at work, and someone close is home. What happens next?
Someone close tells you news that surprises you. Describe your reaction in the moment.
Your job application was turned down, and someone close asks how much it mattered. Your response?
Someone close suggests renting a place together, a step your relationship could take. Select the closest option.
Someone close has not answered your message for several hours. Describe your thoughts.
You cannot tell where you stand with someone close, and several days pass. Your course of action?
You are unsure whether a close relationship will last. How do you treat the other person?
A friend makes an offhand remark about how you spent your weekend. Your response?
You wonder whether someone close would make the first move after a quiet spell. What do you do?
You are having a low evening and want reassurance from someone close. What do you do?
Someone close offers words of comfort after a bad week. How do you receive them?
Someone close asks what would help while you are struggling. Select the closest option.
Your workload is overwhelming, and a friend offers to take over one task. Your course of action?
A setback hits you and someone close at the same time. Describe what you say about your side.

The certificate will be issued in this name. Leave it blank to issue it to the bearer.

About This Certificate

The degree to which a person's habitual behavior toward people close to them creates friction, across arguing, pulling away, reading slights into silence, and asking for or accepting comfort.

Test author Editorial Staff

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Attachments

Attachment 1. Methodology

The twenty items draw on published research into comfort between people who are close, sensitivity to rejection, withdrawal, and heated arguments. Each item describes one concrete moment and offers five possible replies, ranging from one that adds no friction to one that adds the most.

The result describes behavior in the moments the items cover. It carries no clinical label, makes no forecast for a bond, and passes no judgment on the bearer's value. Answers come from the bearer alone, and someone who knows the bearer well might recall the same moments differently.

A result reflects how things stand now. Conduct around close people responds to circumstances and to practice, so a later attempt can come out differently. A high total points to habits that are open to work; it says nothing about whether you are loved.

Further reading: a fact sheet on relationship distress and a guide to healthy relationships.

This is not a diagnostic instrument.

Attachment 2. Frequently Asked Questions

Does being hard to love mean something is wrong with me?

No. The result counts specific habits in specific moments, and a high count is information about those habits. That is no judgment of who you are, and nothing in it suggests you are unwelcome in anyone's life.

Can these habits change?

Yes. Sharp replies, silence, and waving off comfort are ways of responding, and ways of responding shift. Spotting which moves are yours is a workable first step, since a move you recognize can be caught partway through.

Is this test about my attachment style?

No. Attachment style is a separate idea, and this questionnaire neither names one nor scores one. It asks only what you do in a handful of everyday moments, which sits next to that idea without being the same thing.

What makes someone hard to love in a relationship?

Rarely one flaw. Friction usually has particular sources, such as a sharp way of voicing a grievance or a habit of going quiet when closeness grows. Each can be adjusted on its own.

How do I know if I am hard to love?

Look at what repeats across different situations, not at one bad evening or one difficult talk. A single sharp moment says little. The same move showing up with a friend, a relative, and a roommate says more, and the questions here are designed to bring that repetition into view.

Attachment 3. References
  1. Gottman, J. M., & Levenson, R. W. (1992). Marital processes predictive of later dissolution: Behavior, physiology, and health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(2), 221–233. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.63.2.221
  2. Downey, G., & Feldman, S. I. (1996). Implications of Rejection Sensitivity for Intimate Relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(6), 1327–1343. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.6.1327
  3. Collins, N. L., & Feeney, B. C. (2000). A safe haven: An attachment theory perspective on support-seeking and caregiving in adult romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(6), 1053–1073. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.78.6.1053