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36 Questions

 During Valentine's Day, the main event was doing the 36 questions activity with my good friend of mine from Canada. Despite only meeting each other at summer camp, we still contact each other quite frequently. The 36 questions are questions that help people become closer to each other and the main objective seems to be making two strangers fall in love. Nevertheless, 36 questions is still a good bonding activity to do with your friend. I decided to do this activity because I wanted to know my friend a lot better. To be honest, playing 36 questions wasn't something I thought about before talking to her on Zoom. The main agenda was doing a StoryCorps interview with my friend. The StoryCorps interview was pretty casual and nice, but I wanted something more deep and personal. Bored on a Sunday night, I decided that it wasn't a bad idea to answer all 36 questions with my friend. 

The first few questions weren't that bad, though I was kind of confused why the psychologist chose certain questions. For instance, I wondered why the question regarding how you introduce yourself to others was important. Well, I mean how you introduce yourself reveals how you want to express yourself but I felt like the question list could have included other great questions. I enjoyed asking questions in which I got to know my friend's background, hobbies, and personal stories. These were things that I didn't even ask at summer camp or on messages. For instance, I didn't know my friend was active in the percussion section of her band. It was something that I could bond with my friend because I played percussion for two years in middle school. 

Over time, the questions became a lot more personal and I started to freak out. I don't know why, but I started blushing a lot. My entire face started to turn pink and my breathing became heavier. The questions didn't ask anything humiliating or embarrassing, but somehow I was not used to being asked these types of questions. In fact, I never thought of asking my close friends these questions before doing this activity. For instance, one conversation task involved completing a sentence about one thing I wished I could share with others. I felt super scared to share my answer at first because I feared judgment, but I realized that when I said it aloud it wasn't as bad as I thought initially. I would have to say this was probably one of the few conversations that I ever had in my entire life in which I revealed my personal worries, fears, and vulnerabilities. 

Although some of the questions were super personal such as ones regarding our family and death, my friend and I didn't struggle too much with answering the questions because we chose not so personal topics and didn't give a lot of details. 

After talking for 90 minutes or so, we managed to finish the 36 questions and I was pretty proud of myself and my friend. I can't say that I completed 100% of the tasks because it was pointless for us to stare at each other for 4 minutes as I could cheat and look at one corner of the screen. I think the experience was enlightening in the sense that the activity made me answer life's big questions from the role of affection to things I would change about my upbringing. I find it odd and strange that I never asked myself those questions before. The answers that I had for certain questions were recurring thoughts that I never shared with others, such as my insecurities and wishes. When I shared my answers with my friend, it felt like I burst this bubble that I trapped myself in for such a long time. The conversation was an opportunity for me to reflect upon my past life and understand my friend's life, which is hard to achieve using online communication. 

From my experience, I highly recommend other people to try this activity. Personally, I wouldn't do this with a random boy because that would be super awkward and uncomfortable. I mean, why would I share my entire life story with an unfamiliar person on a blind date? I think the activity is more useful if you know the person quite well before the 36 questions and you trust the person. 

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