36 Questions to Fall in Love

I tried the 36 questions on a second date once, half-expecting it to feel like a party trick. It did not. Somewhere around question twenty-two I learned more about the person across the table than I’d learned about people I’d dated for months. That’s the strange power of this list — and the reason it keeps going viral every few years.

So I built the version I wish I’d had that night: a tool you do together, with a gentle timer for each question, room for both of you to write your answers, and a PDF you can keep at the end. If you’d rather plan the whole evening around it, my date night ideas page pairs nicely with this.

Start here

Add both your names, pick how you want to answer, and go.

What are the 36 questions to fall in love?

They come from a 1997 study by psychologist Dr. Arthur Aron and his colleagues, who wanted to find out whether closeness between two strangers could be created deliberately, in a lab, in under an hour. Their method was disarmingly simple: pairs of people took turns asking each other 36 questions that grow steadily more personal, then sat in silence looking into each other’s eyes for four minutes.

It worked. Some of the pairs reported feeling unusually close afterward. One pair from the original research later married. The list jumped from academic journals into the mainstream in 2015, when writer Mandy Len Catron described trying it herself in a New York Times “Modern Love” essay — and it has never really left.

The questions aren’t magic and they aren’t a love potion. What they do is engineer the thing real intimacy is actually built from: escalating, reciprocal self-disclosure. You share something a little vulnerable, your partner matches it, and the back-and-forth quietly dismantles the small talk we normally hide behind.

How to do the 36 questions

A few things I’ve learned from doing this more than once:

Go in order, and don’t skip ahead

The sequence is the whole point. The first set is light on purpose — it warms you up so the harder questions in set three don’t feel like an ambush. Trust the build.

Both of you answer every question

Take turns. The person who asks also answers. The reciprocity is what makes it land — it’s not an interview.

Give each question room to breathe

This is why the tool has a timer. Set it shorter if you’re talking out loud, longer if you’re writing answers down. The goal isn’t to race; it’s to make sure neither of you bails on a question after one sentence. Most people under-answer, not over-answer.

Set aside about 45 minutes

You can pause — the tool saves your place on your device — but the experience is better in one sitting, ideally somewhere quiet without a TV competing for attention.

Actually do the eye contact at the end

I know. It sounds like a lot. The first forty seconds are deeply awkward and then something shifts. It’s the part everyone remembers, so don’t talk yourself out of it.

The full list of 36 questions

Here are all thirty-six, grouped into the three sets exactly as the study lays them out. (You can also download these as a free printable PDF inside the tool above.)

Set I — warming up

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 90 and keep either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years, which would you choose?
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 — going deeper

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, or the future, what would you want to know?
14. Is there something 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 you’d die suddenly in one year, would you change how you’re living? Why?
20. What does friendship mean to you?
21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?
22. Alternate sharing a positive characteristic of your partner — five each.
23. How close and warm is your family? Was your childhood happier than most people’s?
24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

Set III — closest of all

25. Make three true “we” statements each. (“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, share what would be important for them to know.
28. Tell your partner what you like about them — honestly, things you wouldn’t say to a stranger.
29. Share an embarrassing moment in your life.
30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
31. Tell your partner something you like about them already.
32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
33. If you died tonight with no chance to communicate, what would you most regret not telling someone? Why haven’t you?
34. Your house is on fire. After your loved ones and pets are safe, you can save one item. What is it? 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 — then ask them to reflect back how you seem to feel about it.

And then: four minutes of eye contact

When the questions are done, set a timer for four minutes, sit facing each other, and look into each other’s eyes without speaking. The tool has this built in as the final step. It feels endless at first and then, oddly, calm. Don’t skip it — it’s the closing argument of the whole experiment.

Do the 36 questions really work?

Sometimes, and not the way the headlines promise. The study created closeness, not guaranteed romance. You can’t force two incompatible people to fall in love with a questionnaire. What the questions reliably do is fast-forward through the surface layer — so whatever connection is or isn’t there becomes obvious a lot sooner. New couples use them to go deeper faster. Long-married couples use them to remember they still have things to learn about each other. Friends use them too. There’s no wrong reason to ask better questions.

Frequently asked questions

Who created the 36 questions?

Psychologist Dr. Arthur Aron and his research team developed them for a 1997 study on creating closeness between strangers. They reached a wide audience in 2015 through Mandy Len Catron’s New York Times “Modern Love” essay.

How long do the 36 questions take?

Plan on roughly 45 minutes, plus the four-minute eye-contact step at the end. You can pause partway through — the tool saves your progress on your device — but it works best in one sitting. If you are looking for questions that dont take as long then try our first date questions.

Can I do the 36 questions with a friend instead of a date?

Yes. The questions build closeness of any kind, not only romance. Friends, siblings, and long-married couples all get a lot out of them.

Is there a free PDF of the 36 questions?

Yes. Inside the tool you can download a free printable PDF of all 36 questions, and a separate keepsake PDF with both of your answers once you’ve finished.

Do the 36 questions actually make you fall in love?

They create closeness rather than guaranteed love. They speed up honest, mutual sharing, which is the foundation real connection is built on — but they can’t manufacture chemistry that isn’t there.