36 Questions to "Fall in Love"

An Anniversary Experiment

The Leslieville Spit (Toronto, ON).

I recently found this questionnaire circulating on the internet and, curious, I pulled it for Michael and I to complete. “36 Questions that Lead to Love” (as dubbed by periodicals like Cosmopolitan) was developed by Dr. Arthur Aron, Professor of Psychology, roughly twenty years ago in an experiment on “Interpersonal Closeness,” interrogating whether one could successfully expedite the process of actuating love. These questions are designed to prompt vulnerability and in turn foster intimacy.

Thus, in the name of research, we engaged in this exercise together. The fact that our first opportunity to do so happened to coincide with our wedding anniversary was merely a happy accident. Armed with a printout of questions, we set off for a lovely hike to the Leslieville Spit and exchanged answers. Of the three sets of questions, we only completed the first two (24/36, even in a walk that took several hours). According to the design, each set requires a greater measure of vulnerability from the participants.

Having been married for 8 years, together for almost 14, many questions were quite easy (even perfunctory) to answer, for we’d had such conversations before. Other answers resonated, no doubt, but the repackaging of said material in this novel context was illuminating. Verbally articulating a gratitude list, laying bare our weaknesses and desired improvements, and exchanging the traits we appreciate most in one another, all undoubtedly facilitated feelings of closeness.

The prompts that followed the questionnaire were especially illuminating. It encourages its participants:

Over the next few weeks, note how you feel about each other. Are you communicating better? Are you spending more quality time together? Do you feel like [they are] your best friend?

This provocation clarifies the real project. Although this experiment is designed to help partners foster love, falling in love (from a distinctively romantic perspective) is not in the cards. This love as a product of intimacy and vulnerability could be shared with a whole host of partners: friends, siblings, or anyone with whom we share our most vulnerable selves. But the fact that this love is the product of “work” is utterly antithetical to the romantic story.

For better or worse, the romantic story tells us that we fall in love; and falling, as I joke with students when presenting this material, is not typically done on purpose. One finds the beloved and a spark is ignited. One feels unmoored when struck by Cupid’s arrow. As Cinderella and the Prince sing in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, “my head started reeling / you gave me the feeling / the room had no ceiling or floor.”

And it’s not a surprise that many of the ways that we articulate romantic love are grammatically passive constructions or metaphors. To be in romantic love is to be enraptured. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this word from the mid-18th century tracks alongside other words that connote a passive object — as in the positive to be delighted or the more problematic to be entranced or ravished (OED 2). The first denotation, however, is quite specific about the agent of said rapture: poetry (OED 1). This might be mere happenstance, and I’m certainly reaching, but it makes intuitive sense that romantic love sits in the same position as poetry or fiction according to this formulation.

One cannot subscribe to a fiction wherein one is the passive recipient of some supernatural force by asking and answering questions. One can foster love and intimacy, one can make love in a fashion, but it is (as titled in the published findings) a “closeness-generating procedure.” One cannot fall in love by virtue of this exercise.

That said, if you are looking for a wonderful bonding activity to enjoy with any loved one, I do recommend.