What Relationship Dynamic Do Experts See in the Empire State Building Proposal?

When you saw the video of Ivan Beerkus proposing to Angela Nikolau on top of the Empire State Building, you probably thought one of two things: “How romantic!” or “GET DOWN FROM THERE THIS INSTANT!” Or maybe you simply felt a confusing mixture of jealousy and awe. 

Now, there’s a couple who knows how to pull off a romantic grand gesture. But even more importantly, this is a couple who knows the meaning of the word trust. 

This, above all, is what fascinates me about Beerkus and Nikolau’s adventure. Sure, it was partly a stunt. But it also gave the rest of us a glimpse into the power of a relationship built on total alignment, total trust, and a shared passion for risk-taking. 

By now, we all know that having interests in common is a great way to build a rapport with a new partner. My real question is whether doing something genuinely dangerous together can create a deeper connection than more traditional dating experiences. If so, should we all be learning how to scale tall buildings? 

What Nikolau and Beerkus did was thrilling, romantic, dangerous — and an important lesson about the power of shared passions in relationships. 

The Relationship Science Behind Exciting Dates

In 2025, I wrote about a Virgin Experience Gifts study centered on a surprising statistic: 93% of 1,000 surveyants said traditional dates, like drinks and coffee, are growing stale. These daters don’t only want to have more fun on dates, but to actually bond, ideally through pulse-pounding activities like rollercoaster rides, ziplining, and go-kart racing. 

Now, go-kart racing isn’t exactly the same thrill level as, you know, climbing to the tippity top of one of the tallest buildings in Manhattan. But these low-level thrills (which are actually high-level thrills to some people) are still effective ways to determine compatibility. 

“These kinds of dates offer a window into how a potential partner handles pressure, solves problems, and supports others,” Virgin Experience Gifts said at the time. Beerkus and Nikolau are certainly examples of how couples can build a long-term relationship off of a shared desire for adrenaline. 

And in their case, risk-taking was just as essential to their bonding as their shared social and emotional values. Both Beerkus and Nikolau describe themselves as artists and activists, and they often use their stunts as ways to convey a message of protest or advocacy. 

Arthur Aron Explains Why Novelty Brings Couples Closer

Are couples who bond over rock climbing happier than couples who play checkers? Obviously, to say one way of life is “better” than the other would be a careless generalization. But we do know that daredevil activities are usually more conducive to emotional bonding than more traditional activities. 

Thanks to the study, we know that a majority of couples are interested in injecting adrenaline into their relationships. But we have relationship researcher Arthur Aron to thank for filling in the rest of the blanks. 

As the co-creator of the famous “36 questions that lead to love,” Aron has long studied the benefits of spontaneous and adventurous activities in relationships, even within his own marriage. “It’s important that you do things that are challenging and interesting,” he said on the podcast Speaking of Psychology. 

“The couples that had done from the exciting lists were substantially increased in their satisfaction with their relationship.” -Arthur Aron

He described one study where some couples were given lists of exciting activities to try together, and others were assigned more traditional activities. “The couples that had done from the exciting lists were substantially increased in their satisfaction with their relationship,” Aron said. 

But Aron emphasized that every couple’s “challenge” threshold is different. They should try new things, but not at the expense of their safety. (In this way, Nikolau and Beerkus are definitely on the extreme side of things). “It’s the novelty that sort of rekindles things,” Aron explained. 

For some couples, trying out a cooking class together can have similarly positive bonding effects as, say, scaling the top of the Empire State Building. What you choose to do with your partner doesn’t really matter, so long as it gives you both a sense of newness and growth. That’s when the real bonding comes in. 

Real Intimacy Requires Emotional Risk

In the couple’s 2024 Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story, Nikolau said, “Love is like heights. The fear never goes away. You just get better at facing it.” 

She’s far from the first person to compare the feeling of love to the feeling of fear; after all, the risk of heartbreak is so often what stops us from committing ourselves to serious relationships. 

But when it comes to risk-taking, it doesn’t matter if a couple is jumping out of plane hand-in-hand or simply baring their souls in a coffee shop. What matters most is that they each feel safe enough to put their lives — and their emotions — in another person’s hands. 

The overarching lesson is clear: A little physical and emotional risk-taking can make relationships all the more fulfilling. 

“Risk-taking is an essential ingredient of accomplishing anything of real personal value,” Robert N. Johansen Ph.D. wrote for Psychology Today. “Risk is clearly essential, but to achieve a genuinely intimate relationship, it is indispensable.” 

The dating industry has, in its own way, tried to mitigate the feeling of emotional risk associated with modern relationships. Screen-to-screen communication requires far less emotional investment than in-person interaction. And do I even need to bring up ghosting as a classic example of a modern, fear-based response to intimacy? 

“By shying away from the risk-taking that's an integral part of a bona fide intimate connection, partners suffer a potentially far greater risk of the loss of personal growth, deeper intimacy, and relationship health: Opportunities lost,” according to Johansen. 

It’s the opportunity for growth and deeper intimacy that Aron advocates for in his research, and which Nikolau and Beerkus put on display when they climbed the Empire State Building. The overarching lesson is clear: A little physical and emotional risk-taking can make relationships all the more fulfilling.