Keeping it going: questions and follow-ups

Kenji is twenty-five and doing a master's in civil engineering. At a friend's barbecue, he's talking with Priya, who says she just spent a week volunteering at a wildlife rescue. Kenji says, cool. Then he tells her about his thesis. For six minutes. She drifts off to get a drink, and he can't work out what went wrong.

Here's the question. What keeps a conversation going, and what makes someone want to see you again?

Psychologists led by Karen Huang ran three studies on this, including real speed dates. People who asked more questions were liked more, and follow-up questions did the most work. Those are questions about what the other person just said. In speed dating, people who asked more follow-ups got more yeses to a second date. A later audit found small reporting errors, and confirmed the conclusions stand. The kicker? People don't expect questions to help.

Why does it work? A follow-up proves you were listening. Researchers call it being responsive. The other person feels heard, understood and cared about. Other studies found that feeling understood makes people more drawn to the listener, and the effect was stronger in women.

Second, you can go a bit deeper than small talk. Michael Kardas, Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley had strangers skip the weather and talk about things that mattered to them. It felt less awkward than people expected, and they felt more connected. People underestimate how much a stranger cares about what they share.

And it runs both ways. A classic review of many studies found that people who open up are liked more, and people come to like those they've opened up to. So share something real about yourself too. A conversation is a trade, not an interview.

You may have heard of the thirty-six questions that make anyone fall in love. That comes from a nineteen ninety-seven study by Arthur Aron and colleagues. Here's what it actually showed. Forty-five minutes of questions, getting slowly more personal, made pairs of strangers feel closer than small talk did. Closeness, in a lab. Not love. The love part came from a famous newspaper essay, which is a personal story, not data.

Now, her side. When Priya mentioned the wildlife rescue, she was handing Kenji a thread. What did you do there? What was the hardest animal? When he skipped it and talked about his thesis, she probably didn't think he was boring. She thought he wasn't curious about her. That's what ends a conversation, not a shortage of jokes.

Let's change one fact. Kenji says, wait, a wildlife rescue? What was that like? She tells him about a baby owl. He asks what surprised her most. Later, when she asks about him, he gives her the honest version. He likes bridges, and he's a little scared he picked the wrong career. Now they're actually talking.

The mistake guys make is treating her answers as a pause before his next story. Or firing off questions like a checklist, which feels like a job interview. One good follow-up beats five new topics.

Here's the rule, in one breath. Ask about what she just said, share something real back, and let it go a little deeper than the weather.

This week, in three conversations with anyone, a friend, a coworker, your roommate, ask two follow-up questions in a row before you talk about yourself. Notice how the other person changes. Next time, why you're liked more than you think.