The 36 Questions to Fall in Love (And Why They Work)

In 1997, psychologist Arthur Aron and his colleagues published a study with a simple but striking idea: two strangers could feel genuinely close to each other within 45 minutes, just by asking and answering a structured set of questions. The questions escalate gradually from light to deeply personal, designed to create what researchers call 'mutual vulnerability.' The result is a feeling of being truly seen by another person.

The study caught mainstream attention when the New York Times published a personal essay in 2015 about a writer who tried the 36 questions with an acquaintance and ended up marrying him. That article went viral, and the questions have been discussed, debated, and tried by millions of couples and strangers ever since.

What makes the 36 questions to fall in love different from ordinary conversation is the structure. They're organized into three sets, each one progressively deeper. You don't jump straight into 'what do you regret most?' You warm up, build trust, and arrive at the heavy questions naturally. That scaffolding is the point.

The first set of questions feels approachable but already goes further than most first-date conversation. They reveal values, imagination, and the small details of who someone actually is.

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest? Reveals what kind of minds and stories someone admires.
2. Would you like to be famous? In what way? Surfaces ambition, ego comfort, and what someone values about recognition.
3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why? A surprisingly intimate window into anxiety, control, and self-awareness.
4. What would constitute a perfect day for you? Simple but genuinely revealing: pace, people, activities, freedom.
5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else? Gets at spontaneity, joy, and comfort with vulnerability.
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? A values question dressed as a hypothetical.
7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die? Lighter than it sounds, and often reveals how someone relates to mortality and risk.
8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common. Grounds the exercise in your actual connection.
9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful? One of the most honest answers a person can give.
10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be? The first real step toward deeper territory.
11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible. This one surprises people. Four minutes is both too short and deeply enough.
12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be? Reveals what someone feels is missing in themselves.

The second set moves into memory, fear, identity, and the things that shaped each person. This is where the conversation typically deepens, and where real compatibility signals start to emerge.

1. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know? What someone chooses here says a lot about what they're afraid of.
2. Is there something you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it? Dreams and the reasons they stay dreams.
3. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life? Some people answer with career. Others answer with people they've loved or helped. Both tell a story.
4. What do you value most in a friendship? A question about how someone shows up in relationships generally.
5. What is your most treasured memory? Tender and often unexpected.
6. What is your most terrible memory? This one requires care and trust. Don't rush past it.
7. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why? Possibly the most important values question on the list.
8. What does friendship mean to you? Similar to question 16 but broader, often gets a different answer.
9. What roles do love and affection play in your life? Some people find this easy. Others discover they've never thought about it out loud.
10. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items. Intentional appreciation. Saying it matters as much as feeling it.
11. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people's? Family shapes everything. This question opens that conversation gently.
12. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother? Deceptively simple. Often the most significant answer in the whole set.

The final set is where the original study's magic happens. These questions ask both people to be genuinely seen: to express what they need, what they fear, what they appreciate, and what they carry. Couples who've been together for years often find Set III the most surprising.

1. Make three true 'we' statements each. For instance, 'We are both in this room feeling...' Shifting to 'we' language creates a felt sense of being a unit.
2. Complete this sentence: 'I wish I had someone with whom I could share...' Whatever comes after that sentence is often something the person has never said out loud.
3. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for them to know. This reframes the relationship as a friendship being built, which lowers defensiveness.
4. 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. The 'very honest this time' instruction matters. Generic compliments don't count here.
5. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life. Laughter and vulnerability at the same time.
6. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself? Reveals emotional openness and where someone allows themselves to be soft.
7. Tell your partner something that you like about them already. A second appreciation question, gentler than question 28, placed here to ease the tension after harder ones.
8. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about? Where someone's lines are tells you a lot about their history and values.
9. 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? One of the hardest questions on the list. Also one of the most clarifying.
10. 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? The 'why' matters more than the object.
11. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why? Difficult, but almost always leads to a meaningful conversation about love and attachment.
12. 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. The final question asks for both advice and emotional mirroring: two of the deepest things a partner can offer.

The 36 questions aren't magic. They're a structure for something that works whether or not you have a list in front of you: sustained, escalating mutual disclosure.

When both people share something real and the other person receives it without judgment, the brain registers safety. And safety is what allows connection to deepen. The escalation matters because it gives both people time to decide whether they trust the other with more.

People who skip straight to the deep end, asking intensely personal questions on a first date without warm-up, often find the other person retreating. Not because the questions are wrong, but because the trust hasn't been built yet. The three-set structure handles that naturally.

Couples in established relationships often find the questions clarifying in a different way. After years together, it's easy to assume you know your partner's answers. Sometimes you're right. Sometimes you discover something shifted quietly without either of you naming it. One couple reported that the compliment question (question 22) was the most revealing of all: not because they didn't appreciate each other, but because they'd never taken four minutes to say it out loud.

The questions also reveal compatibility signals that might take months to surface otherwise. One person's answer to 'what would you change about how you were raised?' tells you about their values, their self-awareness, and their relationship with their past. That's useful to know early, and meaningful to revisit later.

The original 36 questions are a starting point, not a destination. Aron's study was about generating closeness, not about sustaining it. Relationships that stay connected over time tend to build the habit of genuine question-asking: not just at a structured moment, but as an ongoing practice.

Some couples run through the 36 questions once every year or two as a kind of relationship check-in. Others use the framework to create their own questions around topics that matter most to them: finances, family, intimacy, future plans.

The deeper insight from the Aron research is that most conversations don't go this deep, and the reason isn't lack of interest. It's lack of structure. Most of us weren't taught how to ask questions that open people up rather than close them down. Having a list, a game, an app, or a card deck removes the awkwardness of being the one who 'went there.' The tool gives both people permission.

That's exactly what fun couple questions and structured conversation starters are designed for: not to manufacture intimacy artificially, but to lower the social friction that stops real conversation from starting.

Source: Aron, A., Melinat, E., Aron, E. N., Vallone, R. D., & Bator, R. J. (1997). The experimental generation of interpersonal closeness: A procedure and some preliminary findings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 363–377. Read the original study