36 Questions And Some Strategies To Find Love

Kevin Anthony 0:11
Welcome to the Love Lab podcast a safe place to get real about sex. Whether you’re a man or woman single or a couple, this is the show for you.

Céline Remy 0:20
We are your hosts, Kevin Anthony and Céline Remy and we are here to guide you to go from good to amazing in the bedroom and beyond.

Kevin Anthony 0:28
All right, welcome back to the Love Lab podcast. This is episode 243. And it is titled 36 questions and some strategies to find love. So what are we talking about here today? Well, we’re talking about a somewhat well-known research study that was done, where they produced 36 questions that were designed to try to help people fall in love. And I will talk more about that in a few moments. But we’re not going to just talk about that. We’re also going to talk about some questions that Céline And I had come up with a few years ago that we think maybe work even a little bit better. And then I’m going to talk about, you know, the idea behind these questions means you have to have somebody to ask the questions to.

So how do you actually find somebody to ask these questions to and so we’re going to cover that a little bit as well. I do want to throw a shout-out. I do not remember who the viewer was. But one of our viewers slash listeners actually sent me an email asking me about 36 Questions saying, Hey, have you heard about these 36 questions? And what do you think about them? And I said you know what, I have not actually heard about them. Even though I do this for a living, and I’m aware of a lot of stuff in regard to sex, love, and relationship. Obviously, I do not know everything. I had not heard of the 36 questions. So I decided to look it up. And when I kind of read, you know, how they came up with it and what the questions were, I thought, yeah, this could actually be really interesting to talk about.

So I want to just give a little, little shout-out to that listener, thank you for bringing this to my attention and asking about it. So before we dive in, of course, a word from our sponsor, do you want to join the secret club of men who are great in bed who wouldn’t? Then check out power and mastery, it is the most complete sexual mastery training for men. Whether you want to have harder erections last longer or increase your sexual skills, there is something for you at powerandmastery.com. I was recently going through our website and making some changes now that things have changed a little bit with, you know, her passing. And in order to do that I was going through a bunch of feedback that we’ve gotten from, you know, the work we do the podcast, YouTube, and our online programs. And it was just really reminding me how much great positive feedback we’ve gotten from their courses at powered mastery.com. So thank you, to everybody that has shared your feedback.

Thank you to everybody who has purchased the course and taken significant steps to change their life. And if you haven’t done so yet, I highly recommend you check it out. Power and mastery.com. Okay, so what are the 36 questions? Well, the 36 questions are a set of questions developed in the 90s. There were two psychologists actually a husband and wife, psychologists Arthur Aaron and Elaine Aaron. And they put together a research team. So there were other researchers involved as well, where they wanted to see if two strangers could develop an intimate connection just by asking each other a series of increasingly personal questions. So they weren’t necessarily studying people who work together already in couples, they literally got strangers. And I think I mean, from a research standpoint, that makes sense, right? If you want to see if you can develop a connection, it might be a little tricky to figure out if people already have a connection developed like, Alright, did it make it deeper or not? How do you measure that? So, so I understand why they chose to start with strangers. And we’re gonna, of course, gonna get into some of those questions in a moment. But the experiment gained a lot more attention significantly later. So you know, I believe they published this paper in 1997.

But it didn’t really seem from what I can tell from the research I’ve done to really gain a lot have traction, maybe outside of psychological circles, until 2015, when the New York Times in their modern love column published an essay by Mandy Lin Catron. I don’t know, maybe that’s how you say her name, about her experience trying the questions with an acquaintance whom she went on to marry. So apparently, I guess that stirred up quite a buzz. But the questions are really designed to help two people gradually reveal more and learn more about themselves and each other, and to identify ways in which they’re similar, or maybe not. So it’s really it’s a combination of self-disclosure, perceived similarities being open to getting close to one another. So here’s the thing. Anytime you start dating somebody, you do this, whether you realize it or not, every interaction you have every dinner, you go to every activity you do all the conversations you have, are literally this. The question then becomes, are you doing it as efficiently? Or as well as you could be?

Now some people may say, Hey, look at not everything in life is about being efficient, like come on, can we just leave efficiency out of dating? Okay, I get that point of view. And keep in mind, the longer it takes you to figure out that somebody is not right for you, the more you invest to figure that out. So, in other words, let’s say you can date somebody, and within a few dates, you have a pretty good idea of whether or not you’re compatible enough to take this further. Versus Oh, now we’ve dated for three months, four months, six months, or a year, until you figure out oh, yeah, there are some major incompatibilities here that I was not aware of. At that point, you’re significantly invested. Right? So it becomes more challenging. When you end up in that situation, then you end up going well, okay, yeah, there are some things that aren’t really working for me. But, you know, we’ve gone this far, and I’d like to try and make it work.

And this is how these things happen. So if, if you could figure out a way to decide whether or not this person was compatible enough for you to invest time energy, you know, emotional connection, all that stuff, sooner rather than later, wouldn’t you want to do it? So I think the idea behind the 36 questions is really fantastic. And like I said, we all do this, whether we realize it or not, it’s just that sometimes we don’t ask the right questions. Or we get the answers, but we ignore them. And that’s something we’ll talk about later on at the end of the show as well. So I’m going to go through them, there are 36 questions, and I’m not going to talk about every single question one at a time. If I did that, that would be the entire show itself. I’m gonna go through them, I might stop at a couple of them and talk a little bit here or there about them.

But in general, I just kind of want to expose you to what the questions are, so you can get a feel for what they’re trying to get out. And then we’ll talk about what are they actually trying to get out with these questions. After that, then I want to talk a little bit about the questions that Céline And I came up with years ago. And then I want to talk about how do you find somebody to ask these questions to because that is always a big question that a lot of my clients have, you know, what I ended up coaching a fair amount of single men. And that’s great. Like, I love the fact that single men want to learn what they need to learn first because you know, a question I often get when people, you know, sign up for strategy calls is like, I don’t know if this is the right time, I’m not in a relationship yet.

Maybe I should wait until I get into a relationship. And my answer to that is always, you know if your body’s not functioning properly, or if you don’t know how to be in a relationship, do you want to wait until you get one and make a bunch of mistakes? And then work through those mistakes and do your learning process in real-time? Or do you want to learn what you need to learn up front, right, so that when you do get into a relationship, you don’t make all those mistakes? Now, obviously, if you’re already in one, learn now and make the mistakes and do what you need to do. But if you’re single, why not learn ahead of time, and figure all that stuff out before you get into a relationship? So that’s just sort of an important part of like, yeah, now is the time to learn all this stuff. You don’t have to wait until you’re in a relationship.

Okay, So let’s dive into the questions. They broke the questions down into three groups. So I’ll go over kind of each group one at a time. So group number one first question, given the choice of anyone in the world whom would you want as a dinner? Guest? Number two, would you like to be famous? And if so, in what way? Number three, before making a telephone call? Do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say? And why? Number four, what would constitute a perfect day for you? That is a good one, you will see a very similar question in the list that Céline And I created years ago, long before I knew this even existed. That’s a good one to keep in mind. And I’ll explain why in a little bit.

Number five, when did you last sing to yourself or to somebody else? Number six, if you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old, for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want? Number seven, do you have a secret hunch about how you will die? Number eight, named three things you and your partner appear to have in common. Number nine, for what in your life? Do you feel most grateful? Number 10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised? What would it be? And number 11, take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible. That’s a big one in four minutes. Good luck with that. Number 12. If you could wake up tomorrow, having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be? Okay, so that’s the first set of 12 questions. So what are they really getting at here?

Well, I mean, let’s, let’s look at a couple of the questions individually. So yeah, simple things like, you know, given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want to have as a dinner guest? Well, that kind of gives you an idea of the types of people that you would want to surround yourself with. So, you know, they often say that you know, you are either the sort of combination of the closest people around you’re, you’re at least heavily influenced by the people around you. So it’s trying to get at, you know, what type of people would you like to be spending time with? And, you know, again, I’m not gonna go in-depth on every one of these questions, but just to take that as one example, let’s say, and I’m just going to use this, it’s, you know, don’t get too deep into this example. But let’s just say that one person happens to be what we consider very liberal, right?

So pretty far on the left side of the political spectrum, and then the other person is maybe pretty far right on the conservative end of the political spectrum. So you ask the question, who would you want to have as your dinner guests? And if you say somebody that’s like, way on the other side, instantly, that personal stuff? No, oh, okay. Those are the kinds of people you would want to spend time with. Those either are the same people I want to spend time with or in this case, as I’m saying, the two people are on opposite sides, you’re like, oh, okay, those are not the kind of people I want to spend time with. So you can see how a simple question like that could get into much deeper underlying facts about who you are, and how you operate in the world. And we could break down every one of these questions, but we don’t need to, I’ll just like, pick a few examples. So, you know, things like, what would constitute a perfect day for you?

This is another great question. And I mentioned this before that, you’ll see this on the list that Céline And I created two which is what if your idea of a perfect day, is to go out with friends and party and you know, Bar Hop and do all that and what if the other person’s idea of a perfect day is to lay on the beach and read a book? Or if it’s a rainy day, you know, sit on the couch and read a book or watch a movie? Right? It shows you areas where you’re compatible or not so compatible. You know, this first set also gets to you know, some other things like for one they asked you to tell your life story and as much detail as possible. I mean that one’s pretty obvious, right? It’s like really out there like, you want to know somebody’s life story. You know, it’s something Céline And I used to do all the time, we used to talk about all the little details of our lives. And I remember the point If we were sitting on the couch one day, and somebody asked me, tell me something that I don’t know about you.

And we had played this game many times before. And I sat and I sat, and I sat and I thought, I can’t come up with anything else that I haven’t already told you. And that was, that was really an interesting moment, right? Because like, wow, we have shared that much in the time that we’ve been together already. And it’s interesting because I find that when you work with couples, most couples have quite a lot that they don’t know about each other. And they’ll tell you, Oh, yeah, I know everything about that person. But the reality is, when you start asking more pointed questions, they’re like, I don’t really know that answer. You may or may not remember. Now, granted, this was considered the newlywed game. I don’t know if you remember that game show from way back in the day. But it’s where they would get a bunch of couples who were just married. And they would ask couples, they’d asked one person in the couple a question, and it would be about the other person, right?

And it’d be stuff like, you know, what, what’s your partner say about blah, blah, blah, you know, and it was amazing how many times people just completely got it wrong. And you think, Wow, you married this person. And you don’t even know that simple thing about them. And so that’s, that’s really what they’re getting at here with this first series of questions about getting to know kind of broader, higher level things about who you are, and how you like to show up in the world. So. So that’s the first set of questions. All right. What about the second set of questions? Well, I’ll read those off to you as well.

If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else would you want to know? Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it? What is the greatest accomplishment of your life? What do you value most in a friendship? What is your most treasured memory? What is your most terrible memory? If you knew that in one year, you would die suddenly? Would you change anything about the way you are now living? And if so why? What does friendship mean to you? What roles do love and affection play in your life? Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s? And how do you feel about your relationship with your mother? Oh, now there is a loaded question. Right there, for sure. Okay, so now we’re into the second set of questions here, notice these questions are getting deeper. Notice that they’re asking for deeper things. Just to start off with the first one, you know, if you had a crystal ball, but you want to know what’s happening in the future, how about is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? And if so, why haven’t you done it?

I mean, so now we’re starting to get to deeper things about your motivations in life and where you want to go versus where you are now. So you know, before it was more like, really basic things. And now we’re really getting into like, Okay, what do you want to accomplish in life? Where do you want to go? You know, what things are most important to you like a question like, What is your most treasured memory? Right, that starts to get to what things are most important to you in life. What else do they have here? Hmm. This is somewhat of a classic one, right? Which is, if you knew in one year, you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you’re living? So you know that that is a very common question when, when people are not sure what they want to do with their life, right?

You know, they’ll often ask questions like, Well, okay, if you knew you were going to die, and you only had a certain amount of time, what would you do, right? And then your answer is supposed to be, that’s the thing you should be doing. And another version of that question is often, you know, if money is no object, and you and you didn’t have to work for a living and you had all the money you needed, what would you do? Right, you know, and then whatever you ask, like, I want to be a writer or a painter, like you’re okay, so that’s the thing that you really want to do in life.

That may or may not necessarily be true, but the point is, that it’s getting to deeper levels of who you are and what you really want to do. Who, with your life? And what’s important to you in this life? You know, questions like, What does friendship mean to you? What roles do love and affection play in your life? I mean, yeah, these are, these are starting to get really personal, you know, some of these, I would find that I think a lot of people would have difficulty answering. You know, if you ask somebody, what roles do love and affection play in your life, like, Wow, a lot of people might not know how to answer that question, which in and of itself, would tell you something about who they are, and where they are at? How close and warm is your family? Who, oh, these last two are big? Why is that important?

Okay, well, because when you are young, you learn the most about how to operate in the world, and you learn the most about male-female dynamics and relationships based on observing your family. So that starts to get at, you know, if and this is, again, if somebody’s done a lot of work, then this may not necessarily hold that much weight, but if they haven’t, it may, no matter how old they are. So you know, you can start to get that oh, okay, they grew up in a really dysfunctional family. And they probably learned some really dysfunctional patterns. And you couple that question with questions about maybe their past relationships, and you might start to see those patterns repeating themselves over and over again. So that question is a really big one. And then how do you feel about your relationship with your mother? Okay. Gotta go with the truth bomb on that one. Yeah, oh, by the way, I want to throw another tip to another sort of shout outs to a listener who asked me the other day, where did the sound effects go?

Which is pretty funny, right? Because no matter what you do, when you put content out there, you’ll get people who love it, and people who don’t like it. So I get people who tell me that the sound effects are cheesy. And I get people who tell me that they love the sound effects. I had a client once and this was before we were doing sound effects. But I would make Austin Powers references, you know, just because I find it funny. And it’s a movie from my generation. And, and I’ve seen it a lot of times, and I always laugh at it. And so I would make these you know, comments or quotes from the movie. And he actually said that one of the reasons he reached out to me was because he felt a connection because he was also a big fan of that. And he just felt our personalities would gel. So there’s always gonna be people like that there’s always gonna be people who are like, Oh, my God, this is the dumbest thing ever.

I hear you all. And I’m just doing what I like over here. I like to do sound effects when they are appropriate. So they are back again, I know, it’s been a lot of shows since I’ve had them. I don’t normally do them when I do interviews, because I don’t want to distract the guests. But when I do shows on my own, I like to do sound effects. And by the way, here’s a question you probably shouldn’t ask, when you’re trying to get to know somebody. You probably want to leave that one off the list. So okay, anyway, back to the questions. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother? Okay, why is this important? Well, this is especially important if a woman is asking a man this why because we learn a lot about how to interact with the opposite sex from our opposite sex parent. That doesn’t mean that we’re learning how to date somebody, but like, when we’re learning how, say, women communicate. And when we’re very young, especially that like zero to seven-ish, right?

We’re gonna learn that pattern based on how our mother communicates. And there is tons of research on this stuff. If you’re not aware of it, you can go research it some more, but you’ll tend to find that a lot of our views about men or women, our early views that kind of establish our baseline come from our mother and our father. So if we had a good relationship with our mother, we might have very positive views toward women. If we have a bad relationship with our mother, we might have negative views towards women saying all women are like this and all women do that right. Same thing with our father, right if we have positive or negative experiences with our dads, so so you can see from the second set of questions now that they’re getting a lot deeper, and they’re getting to some more core parts of who you are potentially touching some core wounding, maybe depending on you know, whether or not that wounding is actually there.

Okay, before we hit the third set of questions, time for a word from our second sponsor Are you a couple are your relationship and sex life where you want them to be? Are there changes you would like to make but just don’t know how maybe you think there is nothing that can be done, I challenge you to make this the year that changes. If you are not 100% happy with where your relationship or sex life is, then get help today and change your life. And go to Célineremy.com/sex-coaching-couples The link is in the description and schedule a strategy call with me today. So we can map out a strategy to get you where you want to be. So you can have it all your way. That is Célineremy.com/sex-coaching-couples and book your strategy call today that is my couples coaching program. I love working with couples, I love working with individuals as well.

But it’s always best when an individual is in a couple if I can really work with both people in the couple we can make so much more progress. And it’s just it’s one of the most rewarding things that I get to do. And I get I love working with men, I actually find that super rewarding as well. I am slowly starting to open up working with women from a coaching perspective and in a different way than Céline did.  You know that her talent working with women was just phenomenal and as a man, I can’t do what she did and teach the technique she did. But I can certainly help women who are wondering how to be in a relationship with men. What is it that men want? What is it that they need? How should she show up? And you know, how can she help him show up better in the relationship? So again, Célineremy.com/sex-coaching-couples and the link is in the description. If you are a couple and you’re needing help with your sex, love, and relationship, please please go there and get help today.

Okay. Third set of questions. Let’s go through those real quick. Make three true we statements each, for instance, we are both in this room feeling. Complete this sentence. I wish I had someone with whom I could share blank. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know. Tell your partner what you like about them. To be very honest. Saying things that you might not say to someone that you’ve just met. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life. When did you last cry in front of another person? Tell your partner something that you like about them already. What if anything is too serious to be joked about? If you were to die this evening, with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? And why haven’t you told them yet?

Your house containing everything you own catches fire after saving your loved ones and pets you have time safely to make a final dash to save any one item? What would it be? And why? Of all the people in your family? Whose death would you find most disturbing? Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. So you can see now we’re getting a little bit deeper yet again. So, you know the first set of questions was like, hey, is there some basic compatibility here? The next set of questions was like Okay, let’s go a little bit deeper. Let’s kind of find out what makes you tick and how you were raised and what is possible. Things are there beneath the surface like programs running, right? And now we’re into some deeper things. It’s starting to get to areas where, okay, how do we go deeper than just here’s who I am like, it’s starting to get into some emotional stuff. Like I wish I had someone whom I could share blank with.

If you’re going to become close to become a close friend with your partner, what would be important for them to know so now you’re starting to bear to this person’s sort of deeper layers of your soul and it’s asking you to say things that you often wouldn’t be comfortable to say to somebody that you didn’t have a deep level All of us have a connection with. So things like, you know, share your most embarrassing moment in life. Like lots of people don’t want to share that stuff. They don’t want to tell other people. Not everybody has a podcast where they’ve shared all of their experiences, sexual experiences, things that work, things that didn’t work, embarrassing sexual moments, and things like that. Not everybody does that.

So these are questions that can get you to be a bit more vulnerable. Like, you know, when did you last cry in front of another person? You know, you ask a guy that most men don’t want to admit that they cried, right? Oh, no, I’m a tough man. I don’t actually cry. Well, okay. I’m sorry. If you don’t, you should. Because if you don’t, that means you’re probably bottling up a ton of emotions. And really, that’s not good for you, and it’s not good for your partner is not good if those things suddenly burst out when some event or situation happens. never good to hold that stuff in. You know, what, if anything is too serious to be joked about? And that’s actually a good question. I was actually having an interaction with a friend recently. And I don’t even remember how the subject came up.

But one of the sorts of modern politically charged subjects came up. And, you know, I’ve mentioned my opinion of it. And I could see that she got a little bit triggered, not like, super triggered, but definitely was not agreeing with my point of view. And got a little bit strong about it. And I realized, oh, wow, okay, that’s a subject, I cannot, I just can’t go there with her. And that’s okay. You know you don’t, you don’t have to be able to go there. With you know, every subject with your friends. However, I think that with your intimate partner, you should be able to go there, or anywhere. And that’s really, that’s really how Céline and I were, we could literally talk about anything, anything, no matter how politically charged it is, no matter what. And that was really important to us, the fact that we could talk about anything we wanted any time.

Now granted, you know, there, there might be a few times that aren’t the most appropriate. Like, you know, you’re on your way to see your family and somebody wants to have a discussion right away about some deeply, you know, difficult subject, okay, maybe that’s not the right timing. But you could certainly say, hey, I want to talk about this. And how about we do this at this time when it isn’t an appropriate time. So the idea is that you should be able to ask any question you want, anytime. And so if you hit any of these questions here, and the person is just like, oh, no, we can’t go there on this one. Okay, well, that tells you something right there. So, again, these questions now in the third set, are starting to get deeper and starting to get to deeper levels of things that you would consider important in your life. You know, like the one about your house catching on fire, and okay, all people and pets are safe now.

What’s the thing that you would go in there and, and save, if you could save one thing, if anything, right, that starts to give you an idea of what is most important to this person? And so those are things that you want to know. Yeah, and I think that that pretty well sums up 36 questions, I think at this point, you have a pretty good idea of what the 36 questions are and how they can potentially be beneficial. Now, as I read them, I think they’re pretty good. I think they do a pretty good job of helping you get to know the person before you. At the same time, some of them are maybe a little too wide open, or you had to know there’s something about them like although they get to something that is very or could get to something that is very deep at the same time. Because they are a little maybe broad in some respects.

At least some of them. They may not be as direct I guess is they could be and I think that’s what I’m getting at so you know, way back when at the beginning of the show, definitely in the first year, so it would have been sometime probably in 2018. Céline and I did an episode in 2018 or maybe at the beginning of 2019. Anyway, we did an episode on the questions that you should ask on a first date. And that was basically our idea of this. We didn’t know that the 36 Question thing existed. We were just thinking like, hey, you know, you’re going out on the first day, and you want to get to know somebody, and you want to try to learn as much about them as you can as quickly as you can. What types of things would you ask? And so we created our own set of questions.

We broke them down into categories, we had lifestyle, intimacy, spirituality, and what we call the path forward. And so I’m gonna go over those, and you’ll see some similarities, right? But you’ll also see some differences. So the first category is the lifestyle category. So we have eight questions in the lifestyle category. Number one, how do you live your life? What kind of lifestyle do you have? Okay, I mean, it doesn’t get really more direct than that, like, tell me what, how do you live your life? So what does that mean? Well, does it mean that you stay up until two o’clock in the morning and sleep in until, you know, noon? Or? Or, you know, even 10? In the morning? Does it mean you like to, you know, have a couple of beers at the end of the day? Does it mean that your idea is to be in bed by 8:30? Up at 4:30? And in the gym? I mean, what does your life look like? How do you live it? Like? What? What is your usual routine? Super direct tells you a ton of information if you’re really paying attention. I mean, it really does.

So number two, what kinds of activities do you like to do? So yeah, do you? Do you like to go out dancing? Or, you know, would you rather go do a mud run? You know, maybe you like doing both of those things? You know, are you into action sports? Or are you more into intellectual pursuits? Right? So what kind of activities do you like to do? Do you like to do more artistic things? Right? Or, you know, whatever it is, that is your thing? You know, what kind of activities do you like to do can tell you a lot about who this person is, it can also tell you how available this person is, right? Because if somebody tells you well, you know, the activity I like to do most is I like to climb, you know, rock climb.

And, you know, I travel all over the world climbing. And the other person is like, Oh, I’m not, I don’t really climb. So that means that we might not have that much time to spend together, right? That’s actually something that happened in a relationship of mine. Many years ago, I started dating this woman. And as we were getting to know each other and I mentioned that I was really into climbing. She kind of had a little freakout in that moment. Apparently, she had dated a climber in the past who was not very available. And so in her mind, as soon as she found out that I was really into rock climbing, I was never going to be available, because every single weekend, I’d be gone somewhere climbing. And so that was something we needed to work through. Number three, what’s your ideal Saturday?

Another great question that gets to lifestyle-type choices and ideas. Do you like to travel? If so which places do you want to travel to? Again, tells you a lot as you know, some people are travelers and some people aren’t Céline and I both love to travel. But imagine if one person really wants to travel and wants to travel a lot. And the other one doesn’t, right, that that’s an issue. The other thing is, what types of places do they like to travel to? So somebody might tell Yeah, I love to travel and their idea of travel is going to a major city and staying in a five-star hotel whereas your idea of travel was like no, I want to be in the middle of the jungle somewhere, you know, sleeping in a mosquito net, right. So these types of questions really tell you a lot about the personality of the person. How do you relax? Ooh, that’s a good question. How do you relax and I should also add to that, do you relax right? Because some people are just go go go all the time and they never sit still and never relax. And that might be a problem for somebody who’s like, hey, I need downtime. That’s pretty important.

If you could eat anything, what would having breakfast lunch, and dinner look like to you okay, food compatibility, believe it or not, is pretty big. In a long-term committed relationship. If you have two completely different eating patterns, one is like, you know, total, you know, the carnivore diet, and the other one’s vegan. Right. You’re gonna have an incompatibility there. So, you would want to know those types of things and ask, hey, well, if you can have anything you want, what would your meals look like? And you might even get information about like, I Well, I don’t really do breakfast and lunch, I just, you know, have a shake. And then you know, I’ll do like a quick dinner or something.

Whereas the other person islike, oh, no, no, no, I do the whole, you know, breakfast like a king and queen and lunch like a prince or princess and dinner, like a popper kind of thing. I’m sure you’ve heard that before, right? So these things really give you an idea of is your lifestyle going to be compatible. Next one that describes what your home looks like, Oh, this is a really good one. So I have known people for years, like just friends, who you kind of make assumptions about who they are, you know, based on the interactions you’ve had with them. And then you’ve but you’ve never been to their home. And then one day you show up at their home and you go, Oh, I had no idea. I’ll give you a perfect example. I had a really good friend that I used to hang out with a lot. He didn’t live in the same county.

But he spent a lot of time down here because he had a lot of friends here. Great guy, still a great guy, still a good friend. But I had no idea until I went to his house one time that he was basically a hoarder. And I was like, Oh, wow, okay, I just learned a really new huge piece about your personality. Now, granted, that was just a friend. Right? So it wasn’t, wasn’t a, you know, an intimate relationship. But you could see how, as you’re getting to know somebody, especially when you’re going out on dates, which are probably out in third-party places, at least to begin with. Asking that question could really clue you in as to what this person is like. And last one, how do you like to spend your money who just did a whole episode with guest host, Beth Banning. About how to handle money in your relationships. And, you know, the title of that was, this is the right way to handle money. You know, we have to make somewhat provocative titles to get people, to click on things so that they’ll listen, right?

It’s not so much telling you the specific way. But what it is telling you is we’re giving you strategies on what generally tends to work, things that worked for Céline. And I and things that worked for Beth and her husband, Beth is a little older than I am even so she’s had even more experience in this. So yeah, that is a fantastic question. Especially because in that episode, we shared some stats in the beginning that showed that it was like 60%, if I recall, of divorces cite money as one of the top reasons why they’re getting divorced. So a very great question to ask. All right, next intimacy. These are some of my favorite questions. All right, number one, what kind of sex Do you like, this is really important. Maybe one person who only wants missionary style, under the covers with the lights out, and the other person is like, I want to have full-on, you know, crazy sex in every position in front of people. Right. So what kind of sex do you like? Really important question.

This is why I think it’s, you know, really not a good idea. And this is a whole nother topic I’m not going to go into in this show. But it’s why I believe people shouldn’t wait to have sex until they’re married. Because if they don’t figure out these sort of key compatibility issues, and then they end up being married, and they find there’s a major incompatibility sexually, it’s really difficult on the relationship, and those relationships either don’t last or ended up being miserable for the two people who are in even if they do stay together. So what kind of sex Do you like? How often do you want it? You know, somebody might be I want it every day, sometimes multiple times a day and the other person is like, you know, I’m good with once a week.

That’s a big disparity. Now, you know, in Celine and my case, you know, we had this discussion one day, you know, at the beginning of a relationship, you’re both so attracted to each other and all the chemicals are flowing, you’re basically fucking every opportunity that you get, as time goes on, that changes a little bit things settle down, the chemicals wear off and you get more to what we would consider a more normal frequency of sex. But that frequency differs for a lot of people. And so when we noticed that, you know, we were getting into that more normal realm. We wanted to check in with each other and make sure that normal you know, frequency was working for both of us and so we asked each other the question, and she asked me she said, Well, what would be your you know, frequency now?

Like, ah, you know, like three to five times a week would be good for me. And I asked her that question, and she was like, Well, you know, two to three times is good for her. So we weren’t that far away, right? Like, the low end of mine was the high end of hers so we could meet in the middle. And that’s pretty much but we did we were, you know, two to three times a week, sometimes more, right? It could be five on some weeks, you know, if it was a particularly horny week, right? You know, it won’t make you horny. Joey shag. Now, Shelly shag later. I say now and later. But anyway, it’s important to be at least somewhat closely aligned there. Number four, what kinds of sexual experiences have you had, this is really important to share what types of things you’ve had. And what types of things you’d liked to have. So, you know, it’s not just what have you already experienced. But what do you want to experience that you haven’t experienced? And see, like, is there compatibility there? You know, one person might say, Well, I’ve never had a threesome.

And that’s the one thing I really want to do. And the other person is like, oh, no, I have zero desire for a threesome. Right? So important questions to ask. And if you’ve never had sex before, the two of you, when was the last time you got tested? So you want to ask not just about testing, but really do what we always call the safe sex elevator speech talking about, you know, your, what your status as far as STDs go, when the last time you were tested, what your hell yeses are, what your Hell knows are your likes, your dislikes, your boundaries, all of that kind of stuff. Number six, do you spend a lot of time with your friends? Are your friends supportive of you now that isn’t necessarily about sex, but it’s getting more toward are you able to form intimacy in relationships?

So you know, because this category is titled intimacy, although most of the questions revolve around sex, you do want to ask questions to figure out, you know, is this person capable of really committing to a deeply intimate relationship? Because honestly, some people just aren’t, they just aren’t. All right? Spirituality, what religion are you, if any at all, that’s an important one. This is, is another one that can be hugely disruptive. So you know, you want to make sure that you are on the same page, whatever that is. Now, these things, of course, can change over time. And sometimes that causes a problem in relationships. But all you can really do at the beginning is establish a baseline of where you’re at and whether or not you’re okay, with where each other is at. Would you be okay, with dating somebody with different spiritual views than yours? And the very important question to know, especially if you do tend to have different views.

When things are tough, what do you turn to? So when life is getting really hard? How do you handle it? Right? Do you turn to drugs and alcohol as a lot of people do? Or some other behavior that’s not healthy? Or do you turn maybe to your spirituality? Or do you turn to meditation or physical exercise or something like that to deal with it? So that’s kind of an important one? Like how do people handle things when they get tough? Because life’s gonna throw difficult situations at you that’s unavoidable no matter what. So it’s nice to know how somebody might handle those situations.

And last one in the spirituality category, do you believe in and then insert your deal breaker? So do you believe in XYZ and you’re asking them something that you know would be a deal breaker for you? And if they say absolutely not, you’re like, Okay, great. And if they say, yeah, totally, that’s like, 100% my thing, then that might be a problem. Okay, so Oh, one more category, I almost forgot. It’s the one that we called the path forward. There are only three questions in this one. Number one, what are you looking for right now? Super important question. Are you looking for a long-term relationship? Or you’re just looking for a friendship? Or you’re looking for sex? What is it that you’re actually looking for? Where do you see yourself in X number of years? And, you know, I would I like to ask that in a series, you know, like, where do you see yourself two years, five years? 10 years? That’s, that’s pretty good, you could stretch it out to 20, potentially, but that really gives you a clue as to what this person wants to achieve. And hopefully, you are part of that plan.

And that would be a red flag if they’re telling you things and you know, two years, five years, 10 years from Now I want to do all these things and you’re looking at going, you know, there’s no, no room for me in that 10-year vision, right? So that might potentially be a red flag for you. And then, of course, do you want to have kids? If you are young enough that you are in that child-rearing age group? That is an extremely important question. Do you want to have kids? So all of those questions, really, I mean, we call it the path forward because it indicates where Does somebody want to go in life? And then you got to figure out is that the same direction you want to go in. And if it’s not, then you’re going, Okay? Well, this isn’t really the right person to be with. And if it is, then you’re like, sweet, okay, we share similar goals on where we want to get to in life. And I think for any successful long-term relationship, that is important, you have to share common goals, a common vision for what you want to create, and where you want to go in this lifetime.

Céline and I did that with everything, not just with where we wanted to be in our relationship, but you know, where we wanted to live in the world and what we wanted to be doing for careers, and you know, what we wanted the result of our life’s effort and work to be like, all of that stuff we talked about, very early on in our relationship. And that’s really because we did all that. That’s why it was so easy for us, in the beginning, to really give ourselves 100% to the relationship because we knew where each other stood, and we knew we were on the same page. And it just once you know that just you’re like everything is in alignment and feels right, and let’s go. Okay. So, there you have 36 questions. You also have, I don’t know, how many would I have three, seven, plus another six, that’s 13 plus another eight. Right? So you got about 25 questions there. I probably just messed that math up because I’m reading it here and talking to you at the same time.

Anyway, you get the idea that you have another set of questions that you can also use that maybe are a little simpler, maybe a little bit more direct, you can mix and match them. But all of those things can be used to figure out if this really is a compatible person for you. Okay, now that you’ve got that, one of the biggest questions I get from the people I coach who are single is, how do you find somebody to begin with? Now, this episode isn’t specifically about, you know, how do you find, you know, people to date? Or how do you find the one right? I probably should do an episode on how to find the one. I think that one would probably surprise a lot of you. But that’s not really the focus of this episode.

But it is somewhat important because, you know, okay, 36 questions to find love. But you got to find somebody to ask the questions to first. And so I have just seven things here sort of strategies for how to find somebody that you can get into this discovery phase or period with So number one, go out and do the things that you like to do. So I hear a lot of people telling me these days that they’re super frustrated with online dating, that they’re not meeting the types of people they want that they go through everybody that matches with them in a relatively short period of time. And there’s nothing new coming in, and they’re just really frustrated with it. And so the question always is, what do I do? How do I meet somebody? How do I find somebody?

My suggestion, and not just mine, and we’ve had other experts on the show who have said the same thing psychologists and others, is to just go out and do the things that you like to do. You know, if you like to go dancing, go out and dance and find other people who would like to go dancing. If you’d like to do action sports, go out and do the action sports, if you like to camp, if you’d like to travel, go out and do all of those things. Because you’re more likely to meet somebody who likes doing those things because they’re out doing those things as well. That is a great way to go out and, and meet people. You know, a lot of times people say, wow, yeah, I do like to travel. But I don’t really want to go by myself. I’m going to wait until I find somebody well, we’ll talk about that waiting until you find somebody again in a moment.

But my suggestion is to just go out and do it anyway. Number two, be open to finding someone in the least likely of places. So a lot of times people just closed their minds. I’ll never find somebody over there like that. That’s just ridiculous, right? Just be open. Keep an open mind that this person may show up in your life in any time at any place, and probably when you’re least likely to expect it. Number three, do online dating, you know, I have had, some people tell me that they thought online dating was spectacular because it opens them up to a range of people outside of their small little day-to-day circle that they would never ordinarily have access to.

If it weren’t for the tools of online dating, so and that is, that is definitely true, you can for sure, especially if you’re willing to open your distance range out a little bit and maybe travel to meet people, then, yeah, you could have a lot more opportunities, potentially. Number four, don’t come across as desperate. If you’re out there looking for the person, please do not have that sense of desperation, especially if you’re a man because women can sense that like a million miles away. And as soon as you come across as being desperate, they want to run for the hills as fast as they possibly can. So you might feel desperate inside, you might be like, Man, this is taken forever, this is never going to happen. And how much longer do I have to wait? But don’t let that come across to the people that you date. It’s just that nobody likes somebody who’s in desperation mode.

And nobody wants a partner that is with them because they feel desperate. And it’s like, well, this is here. So I’m going to settle for this, they want to know that you’re there because they’re really the person that you want to be with. Number five, don’t let your sexual energy lead the way. Yeah, this is huge. You’ll see this with a lot of guys, especially if they’ve been single for a while, they haven’t had a lot of dates, and they haven’t had a lot of sex. And it’s just like, they are like one raging testosterone hormone. And that’s another thing women can feel from a mile maybe five miles away on that one. And they’re just you start going out on dates, or even just trying to set up dates via you know, the online dating or whatever, they will sense this a mile away, and they will want to run for the hills.

Number six, don’t put your life on hold until you find the one this is what I was talking about with number one, all the things that you say you want to do, I have another friend who wants to buy a house, she’s been living in an apartment for a long time. But in her mind, she’s like, I don’t want to buy a house until I have that partner that man to do the house thing with. And I understand that it’s a whole lot easier. It’s a whole lot more fun. You can afford more house, right? For sure. There are a lot of benefits to doing that. And you have no idea if or when this person’s ever going to show up. So how long do you want to put off living your life the way that you want to live your life? Now if it’s not possible without that person, okay, I get it. But really just don’t hold off on life, do life the way you want to do life. And the more that you do life, the way you want to do life, the more attractive you will be to others.

And number seven, this is huge. Just talking about this with a friend the other day, don’t settle for someone who does not check all the boxes. So you’ve made your list, right, you’ve got your list of things that you’re looking for in your partner, and don’t compromise. I know. And it’s hard, especially when it’s taken a long time. But every time you compromise unless it’s something really small and trivial, you end up regretting it later on. Now, here’s the tricky part is you will meet people inevitably, inevitably, you will meet people who check the majority of your boxes, right? But there are a few that they don’t check and you go wow, that’s close enough, right?

Especially because you’ve been single for a long time. And you’re just like, hey, you know, this is as close as I’ve ever come. And so you get involved. And then later on down the road, one of those uncheck boxes rears its ugly head and causes a problem. But now you are significantly invested in the relationship. And it makes it harder to end the relationship. The consequences are higher. So really, my suggestion is don’t settle wait until you find the person that really checks all your major boxes. Now, this of course means it has to mean that your boxes are reasonable and not so granular. And so nitpicky that no one’s ever going to meet them. But all the things that are really important to you in life need to be there. Otherwise, I strongly suggest that you do not get involved in a long-term relationship with that person.

So if you can do those seven things, you are likely to find at least some people that you can start to ask these questions to. Alright, so let’s start with how to find somebody. And from there, then really start to get to know them and don’t be afraid to, you know, be open and vulnerable. right from the start, you’re doing yourself and you’re doing them a favor by helping them get to know you. And by you getting to know them as quickly as possible, so that you don’t end up down the road months or years later, in a relationship that’s not working, where you both ended up hurting each other and having a difficult time. So you want to avoid that, as best you can. And one of the best ways to do that is to try to make good choices from the start, you know, it’s not always easy. It doesn’t always work out the way that we hope it will. But we have to do our best to give ourselves the best chance at success as we can. All right, everybody. Hope that was helpful. And that’s all I have for you in this episode, and I will see you next week.

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Céline Remy 1:01:03
And for more free exclusive content. Join us in the passion vault at Céline remy.com/vault. That’s c e l i n e r e m ey.com/vault.

Kevin Anthony 1:01:17
Thanks for listening.

Céline Remy 1:01:19
And remember, you’re amazing!