Test Your Passion

Mar 23

By Jay Slupesky

Testing One’s Passion Here’s a fun little test you can take to find out how passionately in love you are. For each of the fifteen items, rate them on a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 means it’s not true for you at all, and 9 means it’s absolutely 100% true for you. Of course you can pick numbers between 1 and 9 to accurately rate your feeling level. For example, 5 would mean it’s moderately true for you.

Obviously, the blank line in each item is reserved for the name of the person you love.

I would feel deep despair if __________ left me.
Sometimes I feel I can’t control my thoughts; they are obsessively on __________.
I feel happy when I am doing something to make __________ happy.
I would rather be with __________ than anyone else.
I’d get jealous if I thought __________ were falling in love with someone else.
I yearn to know all about __________.
I want __________ —physically, emotionally, mentally.
I have an endless appetite for affection from __________.
For me, __________ is the perfect romantic partner.
I sense my body responding when __________ touches me.
__________ always seems to be on my mind.
I want __________ to know me—my thoughts, my fears, and my hopes.
I eagerly look for signs indicating __________’s desire for me.
I possess a powerful attraction for __________.
I get extremely depressed when things don’t go right in my relationship with __________.

All done? Now add up the 15 numbers. The minimum possible is 9, and the maximum possible score is 135. Here’s how to interpret your total score:

106-135 points = Extremely passionate. Wildly in love!
86-105 points = Passionate, but less intense.
66-85 points = Average. There are occasional bursts of passion.
45-65 points = Cool. Infrequent passion.
15-44 points = Cold. The thrill is gone.

I was thinking about couples who come to me for marital therapy and where they typically fall on this scale. (Of course, the two people may sometimes have wildly different scores.) I think it’s hard to make any generalizations. People with very high scores come to marriage therapy if there is some intense conflict that they want to overcome. Younger couples who come in for pre-marital counseling typically have very high scores. People with low scores come to marriage therapy if, for example, the “spark” is gone.

By the way, I should give credit where credit is due: this test was developed by Elaine Hatfield and Susan Sprecher.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 am and is filed under Theories of Love.

2 Responses to “Test Your Passion”

Elaine Hoffman Says:
April 5th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Fun! I got a 99! That’s pretty good, right?
Carlita Baker Says:
April 5th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
99 is good. I’m jealous. I got a 71.

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