Thirty-six questions and you’re in love? Cute promise. The real study is more modest than the legend, and its best trick fits a Tuesday night at home.

The 36 questions come from a 1997 study by psychologist Arthur Aron and four colleagues. Pairs of students who didn’t know each other took turns answering three sets of increasingly personal questions for 45 minutes. They ended up feeling closer than pairs who spent the same time on small talk. The study measured closeness between strangers, not whether they fell in love. For a couple, the part worth borrowing is the structure of the evening: start light, go deeper in steps, and both get a turn to answer each question.

Every question here comes from Lolo Cards - 4,700 conversation cards for iPhone.

Where do the 36 questions come from?

They come from a paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin called “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness.” Aron and his co-authors wanted a reliable way to make two people feel close in an experiment, so researchers could study closeness on demand.

Here is how it worked:

We don’t reprint the 36 questions here. If you want the original list, the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley publishes it with instructions on its 36 Questions for Increasing Closeness page.

What did the study actually find?

Pairs who did the closeness tasks felt closer afterward than pairs who did small talk. Think of questions like “How did you celebrate last Halloween?”, the kind of chat you’d make while waiting in line for coffee. Both groups talked for the same 45 minutes, so the effect came from what they talked about.

The researchers also looked for a secret ingredient beyond the tasks. They didn’t find one. Closeness didn’t change when pairs were matched so they wouldn’t disagree on important attitudes. It didn’t change when pairs were told they would probably like each other, or when getting close was made the stated goal. In the authors’ own summary, the only thing that made a significant overall difference was the nature of the tasks themselves: self-disclosure instead of small talk.

The most quoted number comes from right after the session: participants on average rated their new relationship as closer than the closest relationship in the lives of 30% of similar students. The authors added a fair warning. People may use a rating scale differently in an experiment than they would for a real relationship.

Do the 36 questions make you fall in love?

Not necessarily, and they weren’t designed to. In the paper, the goal was “a temporary feeling of closeness, not an actual ongoing relationship.” The authors wrote that 45 minutes was unlikely to produce loyalty or commitment, the parts of a relationship that take time.

Elaine Aron, one of the co-authors, put it plainly in 2015: “We had not created the 36 questions to help you fall in love.” Arthur Aron said much the same on a Scientific American podcast in 2023. The questions were designed to create a reasonable degree of closeness in a short time, he explained, and “That’s not the same thing as being in love.”

The story that a pair from the study got married comes from an earlier, longer version of the procedure. It ran about an hour and a half with an earlier set of questions, and the two strangers sat alone in a comfortable room. The 1997 paper mentions, as an anecdote, that one pair from that version later married. The 36-question classroom studies made no such claim.

The love story that made the questions famous is from 2015. Mandy Len Catron wrote a Modern Love essay for The New York Times, “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This,” about trying the questions herself.

Where does the four-minute stare come from?

From that essay, not from the study. The 1997 students never had to stare at anyone. Catron’s essay ends the evening with four minutes of silent eye contact. The Times piece that ran alongside it noted that this final task “is less well documented.”

There is a separate study on gazing. In 1989, Kellerman and colleagues had strangers hold each other’s gaze for two minutes, and those pairs reported increased feelings of passionate love for each other. That was strangers in a lab, not couples. If you want to end your evening with eye contact anyway, try two minutes, and laughing halfway through counts.

Does it work for couples who already know each other?

It can help, says Aron, especially with another couple. On the same 2023 podcast, Arthur Aron said: “In ongoing relationships, doing this with your partner is of some help. But doing it with another couple, the four of you, each answering the questions, has a huge positive effect on your own relationship.”

That fits a 2014 study by Welker and colleagues, with Arthur Aron among the co-authors. Couples who did high-self-disclosure tasks together with another couple showed bigger increases in passionate love for their own partner. In a second study, much of the effect came from how responsive the other couple was to what they shared. Start with just the two of you tonight, and save a double date with friends you like for another weekend.

How to try it as a couple tonight

You two need 45 minutes, one phone face down with a timer, and no laundry in sight.

  1. Plan three rounds of 15 minutes each: light, then personal, then close. When the timer goes, move to the next round even if cards are left.
  2. Pick your questions before you start. Three or four per round is enough. Use the ones below, or the original list.
  3. Take turns the way the study did. One reads the question, both answer, the reader goes first. Swap readers every time.
  4. Go a little slower than you normally would. A good answer deserves a follow-up question.
  5. End on something kind. Tell your partner one thing you liked hearing tonight. Add two minutes of eye contact if you’re both up for it.

If you use the original list, expect a few questions about things you already know about each other, since Aron wrote them for strangers. The questions below start from the relationship you already have.

Ten questions from Lolo Cards, light to deep

Every question here is from the Couple decks in the app, word for word. Read them aloud as written, and let the follow-ups be yours.

Round 1: warm up

Round 2: your story

Round 3: closer

Want more for round three? The full list of deep questions to ask your partner goes into love, your future, trust and fears, and late-night talks. For a lighter evening, try date night questions, or mix in a few questions for couples.

When to slow down or skip a question

Either of you can pass on any question without explaining why. Swap it for another card and keep going. Nobody keeps score.

If one answer opens something big, ignore the timer, stay with it and let the other rounds wait. The study pairs weren’t asked to finish, and neither are you. If one of you is tired or not in the mood, stop and pick another night.

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