Will your romantic relationship pass the “bird test”?

Relationship advice is definitely on the rise on social media. After the ‘Orange Peel Theory’ technique, a love compatibility test consisting of small daily services provided or not provided by a partner, another has gone viral on the social network TikTok. This was popularized by an American woman named Alyssa Caribardi. In a video posted on October 27 and viewed more than 4 million times, the young woman advocates the “bird test,” a method based on gauging her partner’s reaction to a seemingly trivial comment. like mentioning seeing a bird through the window. If the indicated partner responds with genuine curiosity, it is a very good sign for the future and the stability of the relationship. Otherwise, your relationship will be doomed to failure, assures Alisa Karibardi.

A request for verbal or physical contact

The TikToker goes further in his speech. According to him, the technique would be foolproof and could even be applied to all your relationships, be it romantic or friendly. “I do it with friends, family, literally everyone I meet,” she explains. If they pass the bird test, I tell them very quickly because it’s very fascinating.

The young woman did not invent anything. It is inspired by an existing technique tested in the 1980s by American psychology professor John Gottman. Working with thousands of couples, he has discovered “connection requests” that are essential to “the fundamental unity of emotional communication,” he reports on his website. In practice, these connections can be verbal, such as chatting over a cup of tea or inviting people over to discuss a trivial topic, or physical, such as smiling or kissing the other person or holding the door for them.

Avoid jumping to conclusions

According to John Gottman, the importance of small everyday gestures affects the stability of a romantic relationship. “Some people think they can end their relationship and then pick it back up by having a romantic night out every now and then. But relations are built and maintained with daily attention, not with grand gestures,” he emphasizes.

To confirm his theory, the psychologist followed a group of newlyweds for more than 6 years in order to understand the mechanisms of success and failure of relationships. In his findings, he observed that couples who remained married were attentive to each other 86% of the time, while those who divorced only turned to their partner 33% of the time.

Be careful not to question everything from the first bad reaction. Here’s what British psychotherapist Georgina Sturmer recommends in her columns Huffington Post Monday December 18: “This little test shows more of the attention we give each other; it forces us to ask ourselves if we’re doing enough to stay connected,” he adds. If this is not the case, then we must ask ourselves: “Are we ready to make the necessary efforts to achieve this?”