How to get to know a person

A conversation with one of my friends yesterday brought up an interesting question.  Initially the question didn't seem that interesting to me because I thought that the answer to the question was obviously one choice. Imagine my surprise when my friend completely disagreed with me. I'll give you all the question so you can think about what you would answer.

Would you get to know a person better by:
1. Having lunch with that person once a week for an entire year. (52 lunches basically)
2. Spending 15 minutes in their house unaccompanied and unannounced.

In my mind the answer was obviously you would learn more about the person by talking with them for more or less 52 hours than by spending 15 minutes in their house. Here is my reasoning:
1. While objects can provide a glimpse into a person's life. It's the story of that person's life that is interesting.
It's for this reason that I sometimes feel sorry fore those poor souls who ask to see my pictures. They probably think that they are going to get a rapid fire photo album show. Nope... they have to sit through my life stories too.
2. Objects/possessions show past glory; conversation can reflect past glory but also show future aspirations.
 Our past and present contribute to our future but do not define it. One can look at my house and know that I was a swimmer; one does not know by looking that I plan to be a triathlete. One can only come to know my future desires and dreams through conversation.

Devil's Advocate: When I was talking both with my friend and others there were several counterpoints brought up to the above position.
1. False face
It's much easier to put on a false show when the other person's information is entirely dependent on what you tell them.  All sorts of inconvenient truths can be hidden; all sorts of tiny to huge exaggerations can make you look better than you are.
2. What we own, what we display shows what is consciously and subconsciously important to us.
For instance. One does not have to be a genius to know what my favorite animal is. A simple look around my living room indicates that. It goes much deeper than that though.  What kind of books does the person have? What magazines? What do they cook? Possessions can give all kinds of insights into how a person lives their daily life.

I admit that I was somewhat skeptical that possessions could really provide that much insight into a personality.  I challenged my friend to indicate what my house/possessions indicated from me.  Considering this young ladies intelligence I probably shouldn't have done this; it was fascinating though.  She proceeded to give a fairly accurate and fascinating summary of myself as shown by my house, what's in it, and how it's arranged.  I was impressed by how well she related things to me.  At that point I was forced to go from full on skepticism to curiosity.

Which leads us to my random question of the day. To pique my curiosity in a wide range of subjects lately I've been asking people at work and friends through e-mail/text their opinions on things. I thought this would be an interesting question to ask. Once again the results surprised me.

In my purely unscientific survey I found that far more people agree with my friends position than my own.  In a rough ration of 3:1  people thought that ransacking a house for 15 minutes would provide more insight into a person than a year's worth of lunch conversations. Yea...I was not expecting that.