Beware of Small Talk and How to Spot a Good Question

A Life Experiment

I love a good meat and potatoes honest conversation but abhor small talk. I find that people are always asking the wrong questions and try to ask pillow questions to either soften the blow or to ease into a conversation.

Several years ago I read an article in The New York Times about a list of magical 36 questions that could make you fall in love. With a tagline like that, it is impossible to resist reading. Here is a link to the original article. I love lists of questions anyway and one attached to a study is even more appealing.

After the article, I had another encounter with the 36 questions a short time later. When I read How To Live a Good Life by Jonathon Fields uses the questions in his Connection bucket section in a chapter titled: The 60 -minute Love Bomb. The questions do not need to be about romantic love however, they can be used with anyone you want to form a deeper relationship with. His exercise is to ask all the questions within a 45–60 minute period between two people.

Therapy Lunch

A friend and I wanted to get to know each other better at lunchtime so we decided to go through the 36 questions asking one every day and follow where the conversation went. It was our life experiment. The first set is a…