Ask what closeness means in this particular relationship
Understand five original intimacy statements, an exact mean, a conversation example and the difference between emotional closeness, passion and future intention.
Add five numeric ratings and divide by five. A 1–5 mean describes these statements only; any unscored response leaves this group insufficient.
Closeness is a reported experience
Sternberg describes intimacy through feelings of closeness, connectedness and bondedness. These five original prompts ask about meaningful sharing, feeling understood, voluntary emotional conversation, welcome support and ordinary time together. They do not observe what your partner thinks or establish that the relationship is safe. A feeling of closeness can be important without being present in every conversation. Your answer belongs to the relationship and period you chose, rather than every relationship you have.
An exact five-item example
Responses of 4, 3, 5, 2 and 4 add to 18, so the mean is 18/5 = 3.6. There are no reverse items in this original edition. A different set of responses can produce the same mean while describing different experiences. For instance, finding ordinary time connecting is not interchangeable with feeling understood during a difficult conversation. Keep the item meanings alongside the number; a mean cannot identify which experience matters most to you.
Describe an occasion without requesting disclosure
Imagine two people discussing an ordinary change of plans. One might say: “I felt closer when you asked what mattered to me. Next time, could we leave a moment for that?” This names a particular experience and a voluntary request. A counterexample is demanding access to messages because a test supposedly proves that intimacy requires total openness. The questionnaire supports no such demand. A person can be close while keeping personal information, conversations and time private.
Compare the questions, rather than rank three capacities
Intimacy concerns the closeness you experience, passion concerns attraction and excitement, and decision/commitment concerns present choices and future intentions. You may describe these differently without inconsistency. Three similar means do not prove equally strong components, because the original groups have not been calibrated to a common psychological unit. A small numerical difference has no established significance. Read each complete guide instead of selecting the largest number as the truth about your relationship.
Friendship and the eight theoretical combinations
The triangular theory discusses eight limiting combinations of the three components, including liking, romantic love and companionate love. They are conceptual examples rather than the eight outputs of this questionnaire. Emotional closeness alone does not make someone a romantic partner, and close friendship does not require romance. Actual relationships are rarely pure theoretical cases. The page therefore does not turn an intimacy mean above an invented threshold into a label or infer a missing component from another mean.
Insufficient information has no relationship meaning
If a prompt is irrelevant, inaccessible, hard to judge or something you do not wish to answer, use the unscored option. All five numeric responses are required for this group’s mean; missing is neither zero nor a value to estimate. The other complete groups keep their own means. An entirely unscored attempt can finish and every guide stays available. In particular, declining an emotional disclosure is not evidence that you lack intimacy or love.
The theory does not validate this new item set
FermatMind authored these fifteen items and their readings with the three-component theory as background. This is not the original Triangular Love Scale or a shortened edition validated by Sternberg. The four-week recall window and completeness rule are editorial choices. There are no local norms, established reliability, cross-language measurement-equivalence findings or relationship-outcome predictions for this edition. A self-report cannot determine another person’s feelings, diagnose an attachment pattern or decide whether a relationship should continue.
Keep one observation and choose whether to discuss it
If useful, privately note one ordinary interaction in which you felt understood or wanted something different. Separate what happened, what you felt and what you might ask for. No conversation is required to complete the test, and another person may decline a request. If discussing a result would feel unsafe, you can stop here. The public link contains a general explanation rather than your answers, and a copied title never proves what either person feels.