Here are the first 12 of the 36 questions posted by my friend Sarah.The 36 Questions That Lead to Love. A study by the psychologist Arthur Aron (and others) explores whether intimacy between two strangers can be accelerated by having them ask each other a specific series of personal questions. The 36 questions in the study are broken up into three sets, with each set intended to be more probing than the previous one.
Set I
1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
Every time I’ve ever answered this question in the past I assume that the person would probably be somebody deceased, such as Thomas Jefferson or MLK Jr. It occurred to me that that doesn’t necessarily follow. I’m going to pick somebody who is still alive but very old. That would be Dick Van Dyke.
I saw this quiz somewhere which said you had to give talk about something and you didn’t have time to prepare for it. What would the topic be? The answer would be either comparing the British and American Beatles albums or The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66). Not only did I watch it when it was first on, I bought the DVD of it, and I watched all the episodes with my daughter in the early 2010s.
2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?
I probably don’t, but if I were, it’d be based on my (purported) wisdom.
On the phone
3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
Personal calls, I don’t. Business calls, especially dealing with the bureaucracy that screwed up my bill, I almost always rehearse because if I don’t, they sometimes take the question far afield from what I wanted to get addressed.
4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?
Do you mean things that I would put in a blog post? I get up without the alarm, specifically my wife’s alarm. Someone would come over and make us or bring us breakfast. I go upstairs, listen to music, and write a blog post that flows quickly and is brilliant. I’d read the newspaper. We would go out to the movies and eat popcorn. I would get a massage, then go home and take a nap. We go out to dinner at a nice but not gaudy restaurant. Go home, watch JEOPARDY, and read a chapter of the book. Go to bed.
5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
I sing to myself constantly and to my wife frequently, usually asking questions like, “When do you want to eat?” or “Where’s the cottage cheese?”
6. 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?
The mind, for sure.
7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
Yes.
Match
8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
Political leanings, church attendance, appreciation for Alison Krauss.
9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
Besides the kid? Probably an appreciation of music.
10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
Nah, if I changed the way I was raised, it would affect other events that I would never want to forget. It is what it is.
11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
I was born in Binghamton, New York, in 1953. I was named after no one, though my father, Leslie, named his first daughter Leslie after himself, which always confounded me. We have a baby sister, Marcia. We lived in a two-family house. My paternal grandparents, McKinley and Agatha, lived upstairs. She died in 1964, the first important person in my life to die.
Because my mother worked at McLean’s department store, our address to go to school was where my maternal grandmother lived at 13 Maple St. We would go home at lunchtime. As a result, I went to Daniel Dickinson School, where I met several people, at least three of whom I’m still in touch with: Carol, Karen, and Bill.
Sis boom bah
I went to Binghamton Central High School, where I was student government president and sang in choir. Then, I went to New Paltz for college as a political science major. I was in student government.
In 1977, I bounced around all over the place, including to Charlotte NC, where my parents and Marcia had moved in 1974. Then, New York City, crashing at Leslie’s apartment, and then back to New Paltz.
I ended up in the Capital District in late ’77 and lived in Schenectady for a little over a year, working at the Schenectady Arts Council. I went to grad school at SUNY Albany in public administration and hated it. I worked at the comic book store FantaCo for 8 1/2 years, a significant part of my life to this day. After working at Blue Cross for a difficult year, I worked the Census and then went to library school at SUNY Albany. I worked as a librarian for 26 years and 8 months.
I have a wife and daughter. I grew up in Trinity AME Zion in Binghamton but then fell away. I attended the United Methodist Church in Albany in the 1980s and First Presbyterian Church in 2000.
{It’s interesting what makes it under time pressure.]
12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
Remembering names. I suck at it.
Usually, the Kennedy Center Honors take place in early December. They are then edited and broadcast between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. It’s one of our family traditions.
