Wuthering Fights

My friend says that you only find out who somebody truly is when you break up with them. He suggests that I pick a few fights with anybody I'm dating so I can see their true colors. Is this really a wise idea?

--Skeptical

If you really want to see what a person's made of, after goading them into a fight, you might do a lung capacity test, like by holding them down and trying to drown them in a bathtub. Though it seems an obviously bad idea to pick petty arguments, your friend has a point -- that you don't find out who somebody really is when the most pressing question they're asked is, "Do you need a few more minutes to look at the menu, monsieur?" What comes out in the early stages of dating is temperament more than character. In social psychology, temperament is basically what "flavor" a person is -- introverted or extraverted, loud or quiet, happy or glum. Character is values-driven behavior -- meaning whether a person's likely to do what's right as opposed to what's easiest. (Like if there's a landslide, do they try to save you or just wave goodbye?) Character is mostly revealed in two ways: over time and through stress. To speed up the character revelation timetable, do challenging activities together -- the sort in which "party manners" are hard to maintain: Camp. Go on a high-stakes scavenger hunt. Go on a juice fast. Go on a juice fast while camping. Who a person really is can't help but come out when they're in the middle of the woods with you, they haven't eaten solid food in a week, and a hiker walks by with a bag of Doritos. (It's the little things that count -- like how they lovingly brush that telltale orange dust out of your hair before the cops come.)