The 36 Questions to Fall in Love: What the Study Found and How to Try It

Few questionnaires are as famous as this one. The 36 questions went viral in 2015 with the New York Times Modern Love essay “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This”, and they have been tried on first dates, by long-term couples and by friends ever since. Here is what the original research actually did, and how to try it yourself.

Where the 36 questions come from

The questions were published in 1997 by Arthur Aron, Edward Melinat, Elaine Aron, Robert Vallone and Renee Bator in the paper “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness”, in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. The researchers wanted a reliable way to create a feeling of closeness between strangers in a lab, so they could study it.

Pairs of students who did not know each other took turns asking and answering the questions for about 45 minutes. A comparison group spent the same time on small-talk questions. The pairs who went through the 36 questions reported feeling noticeably closer to each other afterwards. The key ingredient is what psychologists call sustained, escalating, reciprocal self-disclosure: both people open up, a little more each time, and in turn.

How to do the 36 questions as a couple

1. Find 45 minutes to an hour with no phones, no TV and no interruptions.
2. Sit facing each other. A quiet dinner, a sofa or a walk without people around all work.
3. Take turns reading each question. Whoever reads it answers first, then the other answers.
4. Go in order. The sets are built to get deeper step by step; skipping ahead breaks that.
5. Do not rush, but keep moving: about 15 minutes per set.
6. When you finish Set III, look into each other’s eyes in silence for about 4 minutes. It feels strange for the first minute, then it does not.
7. Afterwards, talk about which answer surprised you most.

The 36 questions: our paraphrase of each theme

The wording below is our own short paraphrase of the theme of each question, not the original text of the study. It keeps the order and the idea of each item so you can follow the three sets as designed. For the exact original wording, look up the 1997 paper.

Set I: warming up (questions 1–12)

1. If you could invite anyone in the world to dinner, who would it be?
2. Would you like to be famous, and for what?
3. Do you ever practice what you are going to say before a phone call? Why?
4. What would a perfect day look like for you?
5. When did you last sing, alone or for someone else?
6. Growing old: would you rather keep a young mind or a young body?
7. Do you have a private hunch about how your life will end?
8. Name three things you think the two of us have in common.
9. What in your life are you most grateful for?
10. What would you change about how you were raised?
11. Tell your life story, in about four minutes.
12. If you could wake up tomorrow with one new quality or ability, what would it be?

Set II: opening up (questions 13–24)

1. If you could learn one truth about your future, what would you want to know?
2. What have you dreamed of doing for a long time, and why haven’t you done it?
3. What is the biggest accomplishment of your life so far?
4. What do you value most in a friendship?
5. What is your most treasured memory?
6. What is your most painful memory?
7. If you knew you had one year left, would you change how you live? Why?
8. What does friendship mean to you?
9. How important are love and affection in your life?
10. Take turns naming good qualities you see in each other.
11. How close and warm is your family? Was your childhood happier than most?
12. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

Set III: going deep (questions 25–36)

1. Each say three true sentences about the two of you that start with “We”.
2. Finish this thought: “I wish I had someone to share… with.”
3. If you were to become close friends, what would the other person need to know about you?
4. Be honest about what you like in the other person, even things you would not usually say out loud.
5. Share an embarrassing moment from your life.
6. When did you last cry in front of someone, and when alone?
7. Tell the other person something you already like about them.
8. What, if anything, is too serious to joke about?
9. What would you regret never having told someone, and what is stopping you?
10. If you could rescue only one object from your home, what would it be?
11. Whose death in your family would affect you most, and why?
12. Share a problem you are facing and ask how the other would deal with it.

Does it really make people fall in love?

Not on its own. The study measured closeness right after the session, not love months later, and it was designed for strangers in a lab. What it shows is that people feel close when they open up gradually and both take the same risk. That is why it works so well for couples too: it gives you permission to ask what you would normally skip.

• It works best when both people actually want to do it.
• Honest, specific answers matter more than impressive ones.
• The eye contact at the end feels awkward, and that is part of it.
• You can repeat it every year on your anniversary and compare how your answers changed.

More questions to ask each other

If you enjoyed it, keep going with lighter lists: questions to ask your boyfriend, questions to ask your girlfriend or a playful couple quiz to see how well you know each other.