The Fast Friends Procedure
Reach deep intimacy with a stranger in 45 minutes using 36 escalating questions
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 90%
Developed by psychologist Arthur Aron, the Fast Friends Procedure has two strangers work through 36 questions that grow progressively more intimate over roughly 45 minutes. Early questions are light; later ones probe fears, dreams, regrets and secrets (for example, what a crystal ball could tell you about your future and why). Nothing is sexual or coercive; the prompts are ambiguous enough that what a person chooses to share is itself revealing. The mechanism is escalating, reciprocal self-disclosure: each honest answer signals trust and invites the partner to match it, compounding intimacy. In Aron's studies, participants ended feeling as close to the stranger as to some of their oldest childhood or university friends. The procedure works because it deliberately overrides our bias toward safe, shallow topics.
Origin
Developed by psychologist Arthur Aron in New York, who had total strangers answer 36 progressively intimate questions and then measured their felt closeness against that of long-standing friendships.
Core principles
- 01Closeness is built by mutual vulnerability, not time spent together
- 02Escalating self-disclosure signals trust and invites reciprocity
- 03Small talk rarely reaches the depth needed to bond
- 04We badly underestimate how rewarding deep conversation will feel
- 05Ambiguous prompts let people reveal what matters most to them
How to run it
- 1
Secure consent and time
Find a partner willing to go deep and block out roughly 45 minutes without interruption.
Pro tip Frame it explicitly as an experiment in connection so both people opt into the vulnerability.
- 2
Start with the easy questions
Begin with the lightest prompts so both people warm up before anything probing.
Watch out Do not skip ahead to the intense questions; the escalation is what makes it work.
- 3
Escalate intimacy in order
Move through the set as questions deepen toward fears, dreams, regrets and secrets, matching your partner's level of openness.
Pro tip Use ambiguous prompts like the crystal-ball question that let each person choose what to reveal.
- 4
Reciprocate, don't interrogate
Share your own deeper thoughts and feelings rather than only asking; the closeness comes from mutual disclosure.
Pro tip Follow up on what your partner says to show you were genuinely listening.
Watch out One-sided questioning turns it into an interview and blocks the bond.
- 5
Trust the discomfort
Push through the initial awkwardness; research shows the payoff in felt closeness reliably exceeds expectations.
In the wild
Aron sat total strangers down with the 36 questions and had them work through in order, growing more intimate as they went. At the end of the roughly 45-minute conversation he measured their felt closeness with a validated relationship-strength test and compared it to how people rate old friends from childhood or university. The average pair of strangers scored at roughly the same level of closeness as those long-standing friendships.
→ Two strangers reported feeling as close as they did to some of their oldest friends after 45 minutes.
Common mistakes
Retreating to small talk
Defaulting to favourite films or jobs keeps the exchange too shallow to build real connection.
Asking without disclosing
Treating it as an interview starves the process of the mutual vulnerability that creates closeness.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone wanting to deepen a new or shallow relationship quickly and deliberately.
Not ideal for
Contexts where one party has not consented to emotional openness or a professional boundary must hold.
From the transcript
“that is called the fast friendships procedure and like I mean the name says it all but I mean it really puts people on this…”
“he just got these participants to kind of total strangers to sit down with 36 of these questions um that got progressively more kind of…”
From the episode
The Science Of Building Genuine Friendships - David Robson - #799
David Robson