Daniel Jones

You know, I have been in love many times in my life, but it has never been a moment. It's always been a gradual getting to know a person and all of that. But... I did fall in love in a moment with a dog I was supposed to foster. It was a Puerto Rican mutt, and I agreed to foster him. And he was so sweet. And this couple came to sort of take him for a visit to their house and, like, test drive him.

You know, I have been in love many times in my life, but it has never been a moment. It's always been a gradual getting to know a person and all of that. But... I did fall in love in a moment with a dog I was supposed to foster. It was a Puerto Rican mutt, and I agreed to foster him. And he was so sweet. And this couple came to sort of take him for a visit to their house and, like, test drive him.

And so, yeah, that was 14 years ago. You still have Rico, sweetest dog ever.

And so, yeah, that was 14 years ago. You still have Rico, sweetest dog ever.

Yeah, because we fantasize about love. We have sort of a script in our mind about how it's going to work out. And the real consistent sort of love stories where people fall in love sort of in a moment is something that goes against that fantasy often. There's an essay called Learning to Silence My Inner Editor by Jesse Wren Marshall. And it's about this woman.

Yeah, because we fantasize about love. We have sort of a script in our mind about how it's going to work out. And the real consistent sort of love stories where people fall in love sort of in a moment is something that goes against that fantasy often. There's an essay called Learning to Silence My Inner Editor by Jesse Wren Marshall. And it's about this woman.

She's a New Yorker when all the guys she dates are like cynical and She goes off to a wedding and meets a guy from North Carolina. This is a column we published, who is just totally sincere and so sincere that she can't quite know what to make of him. But because it goes so against what she sort of schooled herself to believe in, in what works in a relationship, she just sort of melts into that.

She's a New Yorker when all the guys she dates are like cynical and She goes off to a wedding and meets a guy from North Carolina. This is a column we published, who is just totally sincere and so sincere that she can't quite know what to make of him. But because it goes so against what she sort of schooled herself to believe in, in what works in a relationship, she just sort of melts into that.

I love that. It's those sort of surprising, you know, not what you expected stories that, I don't know, that just really get you and say something about how we don't, we aren't able to predict our lives. Like, stop trying to predict your life and like live out some fantasy. Like, look at what's in front of you.

I love that. It's those sort of surprising, you know, not what you expected stories that, I don't know, that just really get you and say something about how we don't, we aren't able to predict our lives. Like, stop trying to predict your life and like live out some fantasy. Like, look at what's in front of you.

Yeah, yeah. So Mandy Lynn Catron wrote was studying love. She was like a student of love in school, like wanted to figure out how it worked and came across this sort of obscure, I think, study done by a psychologist named Arthur Aaron. And he'd come up with, and his team had come up with 36 questions that would sort of accelerate the process of falling in love.

Yeah, yeah. So Mandy Lynn Catron wrote was studying love. She was like a student of love in school, like wanted to figure out how it worked and came across this sort of obscure, I think, study done by a psychologist named Arthur Aaron. And he'd come up with, and his team had come up with 36 questions that would sort of accelerate the process of falling in love.

And she thought this was interesting and decided to do it not with a total stranger, in the experiment they'd done it with total strangers, but someone who was almost a stranger, who was someone who was at her climbing gym and who she already had sort of feelings for. They went out, you know...

And she thought this was interesting and decided to do it not with a total stranger, in the experiment they'd done it with total strangers, but someone who was almost a stranger, who was someone who was at her climbing gym and who she already had sort of feelings for. They went out, you know...

on their first date, went to a bar, started to ask each other these 36 questions, which are broken up into three sets of 12 questions. And they get increasingly deep and personal about your family, your worst childhood memory, your relationship with your mother. And they just talked for hours and got to know each other better. pretty well through that.

on their first date, went to a bar, started to ask each other these 36 questions, which are broken up into three sets of 12 questions. And they get increasingly deep and personal about your family, your worst childhood memory, your relationship with your mother. And they just talked for hours and got to know each other better. pretty well through that.

Yeah. I was like, so, yeah. I was really interested by the study, but it didn't feel like a story. It just felt like sort of a... An essay that was written too soon, in a way. So I just sort of flagged it as interesting, but didn't respond. And then a few months later, I got another email in my inbox from Mandy saying, And she said, well, guess what? The SSI has an ending now. We fell in love.

Yeah. I was like, so, yeah. I was really interested by the study, but it didn't feel like a story. It just felt like sort of a... An essay that was written too soon, in a way. So I just sort of flagged it as interesting, but didn't respond. And then a few months later, I got another email in my inbox from Mandy saying, And she said, well, guess what? The SSI has an ending now. We fell in love.

And they didn't fall in love in the moment, but it sort of set the framework for them falling in love over time. And they did. And so I said, okay, well, this is an essay now. I didn't quite anticipate what the impact of that would be, that essay. And we worked on it, published it, along with the 36 questions as a sidebar.

And they didn't fall in love in the moment, but it sort of set the framework for them falling in love over time. And they did. And so I said, okay, well, this is an essay now. I didn't quite anticipate what the impact of that would be, that essay. And we worked on it, published it, along with the 36 questions as a sidebar.