Most couples know the basics about each other: favorite food, how they take their coffee, which side of the bed they claim. Knowing facts about someone is different from understanding how they think and feel, and good conversation questions exist to close that gap.
The questions below run from lighthearted to reflective, so you can start wherever feels comfortable. Pick a handful for a car ride, work through one category over dinner, or use them as a warm-up before a game like Chaos Meter, where you predict your partner's reactions instead of asking about them.
What Makes a Question Work
In 1997, a team led by the psychologist Arthur Aron sat pairs of strangers down with 36 questions that grow more personal as they go, from “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?” to “When did you last cry in front of another person?” In the original study, pairs who spent 45 minutes on these questions felt closer afterward than pairs who spent the same time on small-talk tasks. Two parts of that design matter more than the individual questions. The first is escalation: Each answer makes the next question a little easier to answer honestly. The second is reciprocity: Both people open up, in turn, at roughly the same depth. A 2013 experiment led by Susan Sprecher found that strangers who took turns disclosing liked each other more than pairs in which one person talked first and the other second. A question asked in one direction is an interview; the same question answered by both people is a conversation. So work through the lists below in order instead of jumping to the deepest ones, and answer every question you ask.
Lighthearted and Fun
- What's a food combination you love that most people find strange?
- If you could instantly master one random skill, what would you pick?
- What's the most useless talent you have?
- Which fictional character do you secretly relate to the most?
- What's a trend from your childhood you wish would come back?
- If our life were a movie, what genre would it be?
- What's the pettiest thing that still annoys you?
- Which of my habits do you secretly find funny?
- What's a song that instantly puts you in a good mood?
- If you had to eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Getting to Know Each Other Better
- What's something you believed as a kid that you were embarrassed to later find out wasn't true?
- What's a small thing that instantly improves your mood?
- What's a decision you made that changed the direction of your life?
- What do you think people misunderstand about you the most?
- What's something you're better at now than you were five years ago?
- What's a place you've never been but would love to visit, and why?
- What was your relationship with your family like growing up?
- What's a habit you're trying to build or break right now?
- What's something you're proud of that you don't talk about often?
- Who has influenced the way you see the world the most?
How Well Do You Know Me?
- What do you think is my biggest fear?
- What do you think I'd do with a wide-open, unplanned day?
- What's something you think stresses me out more than I let on?
- What do you think I appreciate most about our relationship?
- What's a compliment you think I don't hear often enough?
- What do you think I'd change about my daily routine if I could?
- What do you think my love language is, and do you think I know it myself?
- What's something you think I need more of in my life right now?
- What do you think I'd say is our funniest shared memory?
- What's a small thing I do that you find sweet, even though you think I don't notice it?
Future and “What If”
- Where do you picture us in five years?
- What's a tradition you'd want to start together?
- If money weren't a factor, what would our life look like?
- What's something you'd like us to try together that we haven't yet?
- How do you imagine we'll handle a big disagreement in the future?
- What's a goal you have that you haven't fully shared with me?
- If we had to move somewhere new tomorrow, where would you want to go?
- What kind of partner do you want to be ten years from now?
- What's a fear you have about the future that we haven't talked about?
- What would an ideal weekend look like for us, with no restrictions?
Deeper and More Reflective
- What's something you needed to hear during a hard time that no one said?
- How can you tell when someone truly understands you?
- What's a moment when you felt closest to me?
- What's something you've never told anyone that you'd be willing to share now?
- What do you think has shaped how you love people?
- What's a mistake that taught you something important about yourself?
- What makes you feel safe in a relationship?
- What's something about growing older that surprises you?
- What do you think is the difference between being loved and being understood?
- What's something you hope I never forget about you?
How to Ask Without Turning It Into an Interview
Answer first. If you ask something you would not answer yourself, the other person hears a test rather than an invitation. Agree on a pass rule before you start: Either of you can skip any question without giving a reason, and skipping does not count as an answer. Do not follow a short answer with “But why?” A short answer usually means the question came too early, and pushing makes the next twenty minutes guarded. Watch the clock rather than the list; ten good minutes beat getting through all fifty. And stop while it is still going well. The point is to want to do it again next week, not to finish.
Questions to Save for Later
Exes, money, family conflict, and anything that asks someone to rank people they know. These subjects are not off limits forever, only until you have a sense of how the other person handles being asked. The same goes for questions with an obvious right answer, like “Do you think we're doing well?” Nobody learns anything from a question where one answer is clearly the safe one; you just get the safe answer. Try a version with no safe answer instead: “What is something we do now that you would not have predicted a year ago?”
From Asking to Guessing
Asking gets you the other person's answer. Guessing first gets you something extra: a measure of how well you predicted it. You cannot get that from a normal conversation, because there you hear the answer before committing to a guess, and memory quietly adjusts what you would have said. That is the idea behind Chaos Meter. One person secretly rates a situation from 0 to 10, the other predicts the number, and getting to know each other turns into a game, with a scoreboard and a penalty card when a guess is way off.
It is also the rule we use when writing situation cards: A card only earns its place if reasonable people would rate it differently. If everyone would say 8, the card is dead, because there is nothing left to predict. The same test works on a question. If you already know what your partner will say, it is nice to hear, but it is not new information.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many questions should we ask in one sitting?
Fewer than you think. A handful from one category is plenty for a car ride, and ten minutes that leave you both wanting another round build the habit better than one long evening that works through the whole list.
Are these questions only for romantic partners?
No. The lighthearted and “getting to know each other” categories work for close friends or roommates too. The deeper categories are best saved for an established relationship.
What's the difference between asking these directly and playing a game like Chaos Meter?
Asking directly gets you an answer. Guessing first, the way Chaos Meter works, tests whether you already knew it, which is often the more revealing exercise.
What if my partner gives short answers?
Usually the question came too early rather than the person being closed off. Go back to an easier category, answer the next question yourself first, and let the depth build again from there.
Do these work over text or a video call?
Yes, with one change: Send one question at a time. A list pasted into a chat reads like a form to fill in, and it gets answered like one.
Where do questions like these come from?
The idea of escalating questions comes from psychology research. The best-known set is the 36 questions Arthur Aron and his colleagues published in 1997 to create closeness between strangers in a lab. The 50 questions here are written for couples, but they follow the same two rules: Start light, and answer every question you ask.
Sources
- Aron, A., Melinat, E., Aron, E. N., Vallone, R. D., & Bator, R. J. (1997). The experimental generation of interpersonal closeness: A procedure and some preliminary findings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 363–377.
- Ickes, W. (1993). Empathic accuracy. Journal of Personality, 61(4), 587–610.
- Sprecher, S., Treger, S., Wondra, J. D., Hilaire, N., & Wallpe, K. (2013). Taking turns: Reciprocal self-disclosure promotes liking in initial interactions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(5), 860–866.
