The secret to love is not so simple. On Jan. 9, 2015, New York Times writer Mandy Len Catron published an article called “The 36 Questions That Lead to Love.” The 36 inquiries (not strictly questions) ask each of the two people participating to share progressively more deeply about themselves as the questions go on. They should ideally be completed in order, but they are not reliant on the previous asks. Catron’s article made the questions out to be for the creation of love between two people. However, the origin of the questions was long before Catron, in a 1997 study on closeness carried out by PhD psychologists, and married couple, Elaine and Arthur Aron. The intention of the questions in their creation was to create close connections between people for a psychology study.
In light of the article, I tried out the questions. My partner and I, starting as reasonably good friends of a couple months, set aside several hours to dive into the longest pizza date of my life. We had agreed beforehand to be very open with each other, not holding back on what we were to share.
The questions start off tame, like #1: “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?” My partner spoke of a celebrity she idolized, Zendaya, and the different things she dreamt of talking about with a famous person. I brought up a favorite musical artist of mine, Childish Gambino, and how I would like to understand his creative process and ask life advice. The answers were interesting but simple. We discussed this question about the same as the next few which all seemed to be quite simple and only required a few minutes to give a complete answer.
The first question that we explored more deeply was question #4: “What would constitute a ‘perfect’ day for you?” Asking this question we found a lot of similarities, both wanting to wake up for the sunrise, go on a walk or hike and prioritize good meals over all else. We began exploring all the days we have already experienced that were as close to perfect as we could imagine, and the tangents began. Back to asking simple questions, #5 “When was the last time you sang to yourself?” (I had been singing on the way to the pizza place). We talked briefly about music we had been listening to recently.
The next big question was question #11: “Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.” I had known my partner for a few months, having very casual conversations, but I knew nowhere near her life story. She went first, I set the timer and she began. It was quite overwhelming to hear about her life. I began to understand the changing relationships in her life. She talked about how she had grown through making and losing different friendships and through shifts in her relationships with her siblings and family. I got a sense of her hobbies, how many different things she had tried in her life, and how spontaneous she was in general. I also got a small sense of much of what she felt like she had missed out on in life, and why. We both took a minute after that question. It had gotten deep really quickly. Bringing it back, I began my life story, very different from hers. I also had many phases with my family and friends, I explored many different instruments, sports and hobbies and I went through a process of self discovery, finding my place. It was surprisingly easy to talk so in depth during the four minutes. I suddenly knew so many of the things I had wondered about her.
Question #17 was similar to #11, “What is your most treasured memory?” We got to know each other even a little better, exploring the moments from our “life stories” that stood out, the little things that made us happy. We shared more than one memory: running around in a field with friends, one particular moment swinging on a swing set, the most meaningful friendships we may not have anymore but that still hold a special place. For as long as we had been sitting eating pizza and talking we were not very far through the questions. Now, marking the halfway mark in our journey to love, was question #18: “What is your most terrible memory?” This question was a lot to think about and we both thought it more fitting to talk about an experience and not one particular moment. We shared about more than the surface level struggles with depression and anxiety, bringing up the root of our struggles in the past and how we ultimately moved forward. I listened to a very complete account of the internal struggles of someone I didn’t really know very well, someone I had also shown a similar level of vulnerability to. But the gradual progression of the questions, and open endedness had brought us both to a place where we were very comfortable answering that question.
Originally, we had talked about maybe skipping a few questions so it wouldn’t take so long to complete them, especially with some seeming repeats. A question that seemed to be repeated several times was question #20: “What does friendship mean to you?” We talked about our friendship, and how we had met. I mentioned how no two friends are the same or contribute the same to a friendship, but how the most important part of friendship is showing that your friend is cared for. A real friend is something that in some way or another I know cares for me, because they show it — she agreed. This question segwayed smoothly into #21: “What roles do love and affection play in your life?” and our conversation continued. Starting with the friend aspect, she brought up how tightly the word love is used. Love can be for everyone and anyone and it doesn’t need to be romantic. I agreed that the word is much too scarcely shared between friends. Between romantic partners love is a whole different story.
Question #28 asks for compliments: “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.” Several questions in the list ask for complimenting your partner. This one stood out, after complimenting each other about style, spontaneity and more simplistic things in earlier questions, we were now more comfortable bringing deeper things up. I mentioned how I had originally thought she was a little bit intimidating. I explained it was a mix of having known so little about her before meeting and her always seeming put together. This was something that resonated with her, she questioned whether smiling constantly and appearing “approachable” all the time was something she should be working to do more often. This prompt had made her consider a change in her life.
The questions asked for you to be progressively more vulnerable, but the kicker is that both people share any embarrassment. Each time someone shares something the other shares something that parallels it. One question, #35, asks directly for you to share an embarrassing moment in your life. What we had realized by this point in our experience is that these things we were sharing are not really embarrassing, they are simply parts of our lives. Just because my partner didn’t know everything about me didn’t mean she would judge me harshly because of the things I told her. During these three hours we understood and resonated with each other so quickly, it makes me now a little less hesitant to share so openly with other people in my life.
The final part of experiencing the questions is four minutes of silently staring into your partner’s eyes. Sitting on the floor of Barnes & Noble, we did just that. Every book in the store was more distracting than ever and it took a couple minutes to get used to, but eventually we got through it. To be completely honest this wasn’t the most notable part of the experience, but I do now know my partner’s blue eye color extremely well.
So now having finished everything, was all this effort worth it? Did these questions really lead to love? I’m not going to say that. I can’t say that this list of questions made me and my partner fall deeply in love or that it will be the beginning of a blossoming romance. These questions aren’t some magical binding spell, and if you try them it won’t guarantee your partner falls head over heels. They don’t at all even need to be completed with a romantic interest or partner. At the beginning of the date it did just seem like a list of well thought out conversation starters, but as the night went on and we shared more and more, it was certainly more than that. You will get out of these questions what you put into them. If you want to get better at being vulnerable with friends, they can help you out. If you approach them looking exclusively for love, then maybe they can be a good first step. If you commit to them, the questions give a straightforward way to get to know someone on a new deeper level. In doing them I made a very strong connection with someone I couldn’t have ever expected to have such a close connection to. What we do with this connection going forward is up to us.
