What if all it took to fall in love were 36 questions and a moment of looking someone in the eyes? That was the stunning premises of research psychologist Arthur Aron.
In 1997 psychologist Aron drafted, “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings,” publishing the study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin as an experiment to test whether strangers could develop feelings of emotional intimacy or even love through carefully structured self-disclosure.
The theory behind the 36 questions
While the study did not prove what it took to fall in love what it did show was that the right questions can create a powerful opportunity for closeness, vulnerability, and meaningful conversation!
The “36 Questions to Fall in Love” method is based on sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personal self-disclosure.
In plain English:
- Sustained: The conversation continues long enough for trust and attention to build.
- Escalating: The questions gradually become more personal.
- Reciprocal: Both people answer. Vulnerability is mutual.
- Personal: The discussion moves beyond facts and small talk into values, memories, hopes, fears, and emotions.
The original study compared this escalating disclosure with more superficial small-talk conversations. Participants who completed the closeness exercise reported greater immediate feelings of closeness than participants in the comparison groups.
The original researchers measured immediate interpersonal closeness: not whether participants stayed together, married, or proved compatible over time.
Later accounts reported that at least one couple connected with an early version of Aron’s experiment eventually married, and that the research team attended the wedding. This is a memorable reported outcome, but it is an anecdote: not evidence that the questions cause marriage.
The exercise became widely known after Mandy Len Catron wrote about trying it with an acquaintance in her New York Times Modern Love essay where she related doing the questions and then actually marrying the person she performed the experiment with.
The 36 questions
The 36 questions are divided into three sets of 12.
Set I begins with approachable topics, preferences, gratitude, upbringing, and personal history.
Set II moves toward dreams, accomplishments, memories, family, love, and emotional experience.
Set III invites greater vulnerability. It includes embarrassment, crying, death, regret, personal problems, and direct appreciation.
This progression is the point. The questions are not meant to feel like an interrogation. They are a framework for taking turns, listening carefully, and allowing the conversation to deepen naturally.
How to do the 36 Questions
The idea is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness. To quote the study’s authors, “One key pattern associated with the development of a close relationship among peers is sustained, escalating, reciprocal, personal self-disclosure.” Allowing oneself to be vulnerable with another person can be exceedingly difficult, so this exercise forces the issue.
Set I
1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?
3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?
5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?
7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
Set II
13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
16. What do you value most in a friendship?
17. What is your most treasured memory?
18. What is your most terrible memory?
19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
20. What does friendship mean to you?
21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?
22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.
23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?
24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?
Set III
25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling … “
26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share … “
27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.
28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.
29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.
30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.
32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?
34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?
35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?
36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.
The final task is staring into each other’s eyes for four minutes without talking. This can be profound. Two minutes is just enough to be terrified, but four minutes really gets you somewhere!
Choose a quiet, comfortable setting and allow 90 minutes or more. The conversation may take longer if both people answer thoughtfully.
- Take turns answering every prompt.
- Complete Set I before moving to Set II, then complete Set III.
- Listen without interrupting, mocking, correcting, or immediately trying to fix the other person’s feelings.
- Answer honestly, but do not share anything you are not ready to share.
- Anyone can pause, skip a question, or stop the exercise at any time.
- Do not rush the deeper questions simply to finish the list, in order.
- The four-minute eye-contact exercise should be optional and genuinely consensual. Two people should only try it if both want to.
- Discuss the experience afterward. Emotional intensity can be meaningful, but it is not proof of compatibility.
36 Questions
While 36 questions may not be all you need to fall in love and help you believe you’ve found “the one,” what the study ultimately supports is that genuine intimacy and vulnerability can build a connection strong enough to flourish – perhaps into love.
Give a try with your sweetheart. Clear a couple of hours, sit down and go through the questions taking turns. Comment below how it affected you and what happened in your relationship. Dating Success Engine would LOVE to be a part of one more “forever after” love story!
Author’s Information
If you want help building confidence, improving your dating conversations, or creating a smarter strategy for meeting the right people, reach out for dating coaching. Your first session is free.
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A Coaching Success Story
“After my coaching sessions with Mark on Dating Success Engine, I took his advice and joined a dating site in the first week of April 2025. Using his advice, within a couple days I met a wonderful gentleman. We started talking, shortly afterward we started dating, and after spending several months getting to know each other, we decided to get married in July 2025. I’m now happily married and grateful for the guidance and encouragement I received from Mark during that coaching season of my life.”
— Marie, former Dating Success Engine coaching client
Marie’s testimonial is included as a general coaching success story. It is not connected to, or presented as a result of, the 36 Questions exercise.
