The 36 Questions That Can Make You Fall in Love With Anyone

In 1997, psychologist Arthur Aron walked two strangers into a laboratory, sat them across from each other, and gave them a set of questions to answer together. Forty-five minutes later, he ended the exercise. Six months later, two of his subjects got married. He invited the entire lab to the wedding.

The study — "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness" — became one of the most cited papers in social psychology. In 2015, it went properly viral when writer Mandy Len Catron published "To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This" in the New York Times, describing how she had used Aron's questions with an acquaintance. They fell in love too.

What Aron Actually Discovered

The study's real finding is subtler and more interesting than the headline suggests. Aron was not trying to manufacture romance. He was studying how closeness between people is generated — what conditions produce the felt sense of connection between two individuals who did not previously know each other.

His answer: sustained, escalating mutual vulnerability. The 36 questions are structured in three sets, each progressively more personal. They begin with gentle disclosures ("Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you want as a dinner guest?") and move toward genuine exposure ("What is your most treasured memory?" and "When did you last cry in front of another person?").

The questions work because both people answer them. The disclosure is reciprocal. Each person sees the other being vulnerable, which makes their own vulnerability feel safer. Closeness emerges not from shared experiences but from shared honesty.

The 36 Questions

Aron's full list is freely available — here is a clean version — and you do not need a laboratory or a romantic intention to use them. The research shows they generate closeness between friends, colleagues, and yes, strangers. Some highlights from each set:

Set 1 (lighter): "If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?" / "What would constitute a perfect day for you?" / "If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?"

Set 2 (deeper): "What do you value most in a friendship?" / "What is your most terrible memory?" / "What roles do love and affection play in your life?"

Set 3 (most personal): "Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life." / "When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?" / "If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having said to someone?"

Why Most Conversations Never Get Here

The tragedy of most social interaction is that it stays permanently in Set 1 territory. We develop scripts — weather, work, weekend plans — that let us be near each other without risk. The scripts are comfortable. They are also why so many people feel lonely in rooms full of people they know.

Aron's research suggests the path out is simple but uncomfortable: go first. Offer something real. When you disclose something genuine, you give the other person permission to do the same. The escalation of mutual vulnerability is not a trick. It is just what closeness actually looks like when you observe it from the outside.

Anonymous Chat as a Practice Space

One reason anonymous platforms can generate surprising depth of conversation is that the anonymity already provides the psychological safety that Aron had to engineer deliberately in his lab. The social cost of vulnerability is lower when there are no reputational stakes.

You do not have to work through all 36 questions to benefit from the underlying principle. The next time you are in a conversation — anonymous or otherwise — try going one level deeper than you normally would. Ask something you are genuinely curious about. Answer honestly instead of safely. See what happens. For more on building real depth in conversation, read our guide on how to have deeper conversations with strangers and the psychology behind why anonymous spaces make this easier.