Recently, I’ve been going through training to become a Resident Advisor, which has been a really amazing experience so far. I’ve been going to info sessions, doing different ice breakers and getting to know the Residential Services staff as a whole. This experience has caused me to think differently and try new things overall.

For instance, we just did an activity that I’ve always heard about but have never been in a situation to try it. For this activity, I was told to pair up with someone I didn’t know very well, and then we were told to stare into each other’s eyes for 60 seconds.

We tried to be serious, but we kept laughing, and quite a few of the people around us laughed too. Additionally, we made a few silly comments, and we were a bit awkward about the whole thing. Then, the 60 seconds were over, and we laughed the whole thing off.

However, there was a second part to this activity. In this part, now we had to put our hands up, touch our palms to our partner’s, and stare into each other’s eyes for another 60 seconds. I’m kind of a giggly person, so I still chuckled a bit. My partner, on the other hand, was able to be a lot more serious, which was part of the purpose of the exercise.

Although I laughed both times, it was interesting how different the first round felt from the second one. The second one definitely felt more serious. During a discussion, other participants described the second round as feeling “intimate” due to the extra physical contact between them and their partner. They even said that they felt more comfortable with the person now.

After the initial activity, we split off into smaller groups to chat about the activity. Overall, we all seemed to agree that the activity left us feeling “vulnerable” and “exposed.” Some people in other groups even came to the determination that these feelings were probably so prevalent since people nowadays are more used to not making eye contact or physical contact with people.

But what specifically about the activity made us feel vulnerable? It probably had to do with the fact that we didn’t know our partners very well. We didn’t want to be judged or feel embarrassed. We didn’t have trust really developed with our partner.

However, I think part of the reason the second round felt different from the first one was because a sense of trust was kind of developed from the first round. We both did the activity and were both kind of awkward, but we were only really focused on our own awkwardness versus our partner’s. We weren’t judging our partners but were actually judging ourselves.

While thinking about this activity more, I remembered I heard of romantic partners doing this together for longer periods of time and how it’s supposed to be really intense. I realized that this is probably the case because romantic partners typically already have that trust and vulnerability with each other.

This was definitely an interesting activity, and it made me think a lot about how I perceive myself and others. I recommend trying it with an acquaintance, a friend or a loved one. If you end up trying it, how do you feel about the person afterwards?