In 2015 the New York Times published an essay drawing attention to a study that claimed to have developed a “methodology” for creating an intimate bond between two complete strangers. The initial study was dryly concerned with finding ways to manipulate “interpersonal closeness,” but writer Mandy Len Catron had a simpler term for the experience that it created: love. When she tried it with an acquaintance, they were married within six months.

For a love spell it’s deceptively simple. First, ask each other a series of 36 increasingly searching and personal questions, from whether you’d like to be famous to your greatest embarrassments and regrets. Then, to seal the deal, stare into each other’s eyes for four minutes without breaking the gaze.

Reading this led me to wonder: if the mysteries of the heart can be encoded as a rote procedure, might a similar ritual also be able to break the spell? After canvassing opinions about the most dangerous questions in a relationship, I can now present my first attempt at an antidote to love. It’s not quite as rigorous as the original test, and it certainly hasn’t been peer reviewed. In fact, I haven’t even tested it myself: I’m not prepared to put my marriage in jeopardy in the name of science. But I guarantee that it will at least strain some bonds of intimacy, even if they don’t altogether break.

Why would you want to sabotage a relationship like that? There are many reasons! Perhaps you’ve made the mistake of undertaking the original exercise with a totally inappropriate partner, leaving you infatuated with someone totally unsuitable. Perhaps you are having a passionate affair with a co-worker and desperately need it to stop before things get out of hand. Or perhaps you are so certain of the strength of your love that you’re willing to put it to the ultimate test.

Instructions: Stare into your partner’s eyes and assume a look of bored contempt. Then take turns in asking the following questions, each answering them as honestly as you can.

1) If you could burn one possession of mine, what would it be?

2) Which of my family members do you find most unbearable?

3) Which friend of mine do you falsely pretend to like?

4) Which friend of mine do you like more than you really should?

5) Imagine we were both kidnapped by a sadistic murderer who instructed us to decide between ourselves. Which of us would go free and which would end up being murdered?

6) What quality do I most overrate in myself? Is there something I’m proud of with no good reason?

7) Describe, in detail, an unconscious tic of mine that drives you to distraction.

8) Tell me something you’ve always wanted to say to me but never dared.

9) What’s something you know about me that I don’t know that you know?

10) What has most disappointed you about me?

11) When was the last time you were angry with me but decided not to let it show?

12) What dreams and ambitions has our relationship prevented you from fulfilling?

13) What would you most like to change about my appearance?

14) Which of your previous partners do you most miss and what did they give you that I can’t?

15) What’s something you could truthfully say about yourself that would genuinely shock me?

16) What film or book that I like have you pretended to like?

17) Which of us works hardest on our relationship – financially, emotionally, in terms of day-to-day chores?

18) Describe all the ways in which your life would have been better if we had never met.

19) When was the last time you were ashamed to be associated with me?

If you made it this far and still want to spend the evening together, well done – either it’s true love, or you’re good enough at lying to each other that it might as well be.

Questions reprinted with permission from How Do You Feel: A Spectacular Compendium of Ideas, Interactive Games, Provocations, Tests, and Tricks That Explore the World of What You Feel and Why (Princeton Architectural Press), which is available from Amazon or Bookshop.