THE BEST THING you can do for a friend or your spouse is for you to learn to be intimate. When you become closer to her, she also becomes closer to you, and that's good for both of you.

When researchers do an experiment, they of course have to do the experiment on individual people. And they have found that people who have several close ties with others are happier and healthier than people with few or no close relationships.

What some researchers have overlooked is that a relationship is a two-way street. If Mort is close to Fifi — if he has a warm and intimate relationship with her, Fifi inevitably and ineluctably has a close relationship with Mort.

What this means to you is your efforts to get closer to the people you love will not only benefit your health, but it will benefit those you choose to become closer with.