The 36 Questions to Fall in Love: The Real Study, All 36, and How to Do It Right

The 36 questions to fall in love are a real research instrument from a 1997 study by psychologist Arthur Aron and colleagues at SUNY Stony Brook, titled "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness." Two people take turns answering three sets of increasingly personal questions, about 45 minutes total, and the escalating self-disclosure reliably generates closeness between strangers.

That's the honest headline: reliably generates closeness. It does not guarantee love, and the study never claimed it did. Here's the real story, all 36 questions, and how to run it well.

What was the actual 36 questions study?

Aron's team wanted a repeatable lab method for creating closeness between strangers, sometimes called the fast-friends procedure. Pairs worked through the three question sets, each set more personal than the last, taking turns so disclosure stayed mutual. The paper appeared in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (journals.sagepub.com) in 1997.

It worked strikingly well. After one 45-minute session, the average pair rated their new relationship as closer than the closest relationship in the lives of roughly 30% of comparable students. One pair from the broader research program famously ended up married. That anecdote plus a 2015 New York Times Modern Love essay by Mandy Len Catron, "To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This" (nytimes.com), turned a lab procedure into a phenomenon.

Do the 36 questions actually make you fall in love?

They reliably create closeness, and closeness is a precondition for love rather than a switch that flips it on. The mechanism is escalating, reciprocal self-disclosure: I share something a little risky, you match it, and trust compounds question by question.

The myth	What the study actually found
Answer 36 questions and you'll fall in love	The procedure generates measurable closeness between strangers in about 45 minutes
It worked because the questions are magic	It worked because disclosure escalates gradually and both people answer everything
The 4-minute eye contact is part of the study	Eye contact came from separate research and was added by the 2015 essay
It only works on strangers on first dates	The mechanism (mutual disclosure) works in any relationship, including decades-old ones

Set I: the shallow end (questions 1 to 12)

Set I feels almost like small talk, and that's deliberate. Nobody discloses their fears to someone who hasn't earned it, so the first set builds the on-ramp: preferences, daydreams, a first pass at your life story.

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 phone call, do you ever rehearse what you're 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: the middle (questions 13 to 24)

Set II moves from facts to feelings: regrets, treasured and terrible memories, your relationship with your family. This is where most pairs report the conversation starting to feel unusually real.

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: the deep end (questions 25 to 36)

Set III turns the two of you into a "we" and asks for the things people rarely say out loud: what you'd regret leaving unsaid, whose death you fear most, a problem you actually need help with. By now the trust built in Sets I and II makes these answerable.

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, share what would be important for them to know.
28. Tell your partner what you like about them. Be very honest this time, saying things 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 they might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

How do you do the 36 questions right?

• Both of you answer every question. Reciprocity is the engine. Taking turns going first keeps either person from becoming the interviewer.
• Go in order. The escalation is the design. Skipping to Set III cold is how you get a flinch instead of a disclosure.
• Give it real time. Budget 45 minutes minimum, and don't be surprised by two hours. One set per evening across three nights works beautifully.
• The eye contact part is optional. Staring into each other's eyes for 4 minutes came from separate psychology research on mutual gaze and was bolted on by the 2015 essay. It's intense and lovely and entirely skippable.
• Passing is allowed. A pass with honesty ("that one's hard for me tonight") is itself a disclosure.

Do the 36 questions work if you're already a couple?

Yes, and this might be their best use. Long-term couples drift into assuming they already know every answer, so disclosure quietly stops. The questions restart it. If you want questions written for people who already share a bathroom, I collected 50 in questions to ask your partner, organized by depth and situation.

The one-night format has a weakness for couples, though: it's a peak experience that ends. The research mechanism, escalating mutual disclosure, works best as a drip rather than a flood.

That's the idea behind u+me, an iOS app where you and your partner answer one question a day in your own voices and neither can listen until both have spoken, so the reciprocity the study depended on is built into the mechanics. Its free deck is literally named "The 36," inspired by the study's escalating-disclosure principle (to be clear, it's u+me's own questions rather than the 36 above). Each day's answers stay sealed until you've both recorded, then open at once, and answered questions build a private archive of moments. u+me is coming soon to the App Store.

Your quick-start plan

1. Pick a night with no time pressure and put phones on the table only for reading questions.
2. Do Set I over dinner, Set II on the couch, and save Set III for when it feels earned, tonight or another night.
3. Alternate who answers first on each question.
4. Afterward, each name the one answer that surprised you most.

Whether it takes 45 minutes or three evenings, the questions do exactly what they did in 1997: they get two people saying true things in escalating order. What that becomes is up to you.