P
ersonally, for someone who
has had a lot of ‘almost
together’ relationships with
men, meeting someone new
and going through the long
and weary process of getting to know
each other can be tiring.
When it comes to relationships, I’m
a sucker for love at first sight. Or should
I say infatuation at first sight? Carl* and
I connected through social media and
despite the long distance, we hit it
off really well in our conversations.
In just one week, we started video-
calling each other every day and
shared bits of our daily lives.
I quickly fell for his kindness and
caring attitude, and marked him
as a potential romantic partner.
That’s when I suggested we give the
36 questions (a study designed by
psychologists from the US aimed
at fostering closeness between two
strangers through three sets of
carefully-curated questions) a try.
Going through the first set of
questions was easy, especially since
most of them were interesting and
funny. Depending on how open you
choose to be with your partner, we
both spent a good hour each answering
12 questions from the first set, as we
often deviated away from the quiz
and shared additional information.
The second and third sets of
questions delved into more personal
and intimate topics, and put me at a
crossroad if I wanted to be open and
share some of my darkest secrets with
a man I barely know. I thought, why
not? It was certainly not easy to open
my heart to him, especially since I’m
naturally a private person, but I saw
potential in this man and wanted to
be as honest as possible.
Getting through the whole quiz was
a bumpy ride and we found ourselves
opening up so much to each other –
including our likes, dislikes, personal
memories, experiences, opinions and
perspectives in life. But here’s the
million-dollar question: did we end
up falling in love?
While I can’t speak on Carl’s*
behalf, the quiz made me grow fonder
of him. A part of me was happy at
how the quiz resulted in a closer
relationship between us, but at the
same time I feel that we should not
have undergone the experiment.
As we continued our relationship
through video calls daily, I started
noticing how his actions contradicted
my perception of him from the answers
he fed me via the quiz. Can you
determine when a person is being
honest and when he’s not? You can’t.
While this quiz may have accelerated
our knowledge of each other, I also felt
that it contributed to the dying spark
between us. The curiosity that we had
towards each other eventually started to
fade and it was partly because we both
felt that we knew each other enough
through the quiz.
But after taking some time off to
evaluate our relationship, I realised
that what it lacked the most was quality.
I regret not sticking to the traditional
methods of getting to know him through
spontaneous conversations, especially
since it was these chats that brought
us closer in the beginning.
The 36 questions approach might
not have worked to my advantage but
it’s undoubtedly a powerful study with
many positive reviews from couples
who got the best out of it.
I decided to speak to two women who
did the quiz with their partners and their
experiences led me to some invaluable
insights on the objective of the quiz.
THE MONTHS-OLD RELATIONSHIP
As an outgoing person, Letty* first met her
boyfriend Jordan* at a social event in university.
But living hours away from each other in
different cities after graduation meant that
there had to be a strong communication and
deep understanding between the two to maintain
their relationship.
“We like to play games a lot because we don’t
get to see each other much and we feel a quiz
like this animates our relationship even more.
It creates excitement and allows us to see each
other’s perspective about life.
“I learnt a lot about him in such a short time
and it really helped to bring us closer. You get to
know a person’s sensitivity and vulnerability, and
see them in a different light after taking the quiz.
“However, there was a point where I felt
really emotional because he was revealing a
family-related incident and I’d never seen that
side of him before. It prompted us to explore
our deepest and most private feelings, and
inevitably led us to discover our sensitive sides.
“At the end of the day, I think it was
the perfect quiz for us considering our
circumstances of being in an LDR. I feel that
it made things feel more serious between us
and it was worth it. Some people may think
of the quiz as a shortcut to getting to know
someone, but his eagerness to take part in it
was attractive to me because it made me feel
like he really wanted to figure me out and get
closer to me.”
WHILE THIS QUIZ MAY
HAVE ACCELERATED OUR
KNOWLEDGE OF EACH
OTHER, I ALSO FELT THAT
IT CONTRIBUTED TO THE
DYING SPARK BETWEEN US.
