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Questions to ask your partner: 120 of them, and six rules for asking
A list of questions to ask your partner is the easy half. The hard half is asking so that it stays a conversation, and six rules printed on our card deck cover that part. Below: the rules, then 120 questions by category, then the same evening as a free printable deck.
One question, both of you answering. That is the whole format.
In short
Five to nine questions is plenty for one sitting. Answer each one yourself before your partner does, take turns going first, and ask one follow-up about their answer before you reach for the next card. That follow-up is the part that reads as listening.
Start light and get heavier as the evening goes on. Either of you can pass on any question without giving a reason. If you have half an hour, take the fun ones or the guessing game; the deep set at the top of the list is the one that needs an unhurried hour.
Six rules that keep it a conversation
These six lines are printed on the rules sheet of our card deck, word for word as they appear there. They work just as well with the list on this page and a phone screen.
- Cut out the cards. Shuffle each theme on its own, or mix all four.
- Take turns drawing a card and reading it out loud.
- Memories, Future, and Everyday cards: you both answer, the reader goes first.
- Would You Know cards: your partner guesses your answer and keeps the card if right.
- Whoever holds more Would You Know cards at the end picks the next date night.
- Pass on any card you like. Nobody has to explain why.
What the research adds to those six lines
Two studies did the boring work here. Arthur Aron and colleagues sat pairs of strangers down with three sets of slips of paper and measured how close they felt afterwards. Karen Huang and colleagues told strangers how many questions to ask in a fifteen-minute chat, then counted follow-up questions across an evening of speed dates and who wanted to meet again.
Rule 3 is the oldest one in the literature
The instruction sheet Aron handed participants said the same thing: share your answer with your partner, then let them share their answer to the same question. The sheet also told pairs to alternate who reads aloud, which is our rule 2.
Add one follow-up before the next card
A follow-up question is one that encourages the other person to elaborate on what they just said. Across an evening of speed dating, the people who asked more of them were asked back more often.
Nine questions is already a lot
In the Huang experiment one partner was told to ask at least nine questions in a fifteen-minute chat, the other at most four. Those numbers were the top and bottom quarters of an ordinary conversation, so nine still sounds normal.
Light first, heavier later
Aron’s procedure ran as three sets of slips, fifteen minutes each, escalating in intensity. Everybody opened with something easy. Our rule 1 lets you shuffle one theme at a time for the same reason.
120 questions to ask your partner, grouped by the evening you want
Seven categories of questions for couples to ask each other. The numbers are there so you can say “let’s do forty-one to forty-nine tonight” and stop where you said you would. None of these repeat the forty-eight printed on the deck, so both sets fit into one evening.
One word about “intimate”. When people search for intimate questions to ask your partner, most lists answer with bedroom material. Here the word keeps its other sense: questions you would never put to a colleague, about what somebody is afraid of, proud of, or quietly hoping for.
Deep questions to ask your partner
Twenty for a slow evening with nothing after it.
- 1. What did you believe about love at twenty that you no longer believe?
- 2. When did you last feel genuinely proud of yourself, and did you tell anyone?
- 3. What do you do with a bad mood when I am not around?
- 4. Which version of you do your oldest friends still expect to see?
- 5. What is a decision you made mainly to avoid disappointing somebody?
- 6. What do you need from me on a day that has already gone wrong?
- 7. Which of your parents do you catch yourself sounding like?
- 8. What is something you have never managed to explain to anyone properly?
- 9. What is the loneliest you have ever felt in a room full of people?
- 10. Which part of your life right now would you keep exactly as it is?
- 11. When during an ordinary week do you feel most like yourself?
- 12. What is a fear of yours that you know is irrational?
- 13. What do you think I misunderstand about you most often?
- 14. What do you want to get better at that has nothing to do with work?
- 15. Which compliment do you quietly disbelieve when you hear it?
- 16. What have you changed your mind about in the last two years?
- 17. What is the kindest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
- 18. If money stopped being a question tomorrow, what would you still keep doing?
- 19. What would you want said about you by the people who worked with you?
- 20. What do you hope is still true about us in ten years?
Fun questions to ask your partner
Twenty for a car, a queue, or the end of a heavy week.
- 21. What is the most useless skill you are genuinely good at?
- 22. Which household appliance would you defend in an argument?
- 23. What is the worst haircut you have ever paid money for?
- 24. Which moment from this week would a laugh track have ruined?
- 25. What food do you pretend to like for somebody else’s sake?
- 26. Which fictional family could you survive living with for a month?
- 27. What is the strangest thing you have searched for this week?
- 28. If you had to give a twenty-minute talk tomorrow, what would it be about?
- 29. What is the pettiest hill you are willing to die on?
- 30. Which of your habits would confuse a visiting alien the most?
- 31. What would this year of your life be called as a reality show?
- 32. Which piece of furniture in this home would you fight to keep?
- 33. What is the best thing you have ever found in a coat pocket?
- 34. If we swapped phones for a day, what would you warn me about first?
- 35. Which song should play when you walk into a room in slow motion?
- 36. What is the most ridiculous thing you have ever cried at?
- 37. What is the worst advice you have ever given somebody confidently?
- 38. Which shop could you happily get lost in for two hours?
- 39. What would the most embarrassing chapter of your autobiography be called?
- 40. If you could ban one small everyday sound forever, which one?
Love questions to ask your partner
Eighteen that stay inside the relationship itself.
- 41. When did you first think that this might be serious?
- 42. Which of my moods do you spot before I notice them myself?
- 43. Which small thing that I do would you miss immediately?
- 44. What is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about us?
- 45. How do you prefer to be told that something is wrong?
- 46. What did you assume about relationships before this one that turned out wrong?
- 47. Which place makes you feel closest to me, and why that one?
- 48. What did loving somebody look like in the house you grew up in?
- 49. What is something I said once that you still think about?
- 50. Which of our completely ordinary days would you choose to relive?
- 51. When do you find it hardest to tell me what you need?
- 52. What does a good apology look like to you?
- 53. What do you want more of from me that you have never asked for?
- 54. What would you write on the back of a photo of us?
- 55. What is a kindness you do for me that you think I have missed?
- 56. When you picture us old, what are we doing on an ordinary Tuesday?
- 57. When do you feel wanted, and when do you only feel needed?
- 58. What did you learn about yourself during the hardest year we have had?
Questions to get to know your partner
Eighteen about the years before you met, which never run out.
- 59. Which teacher would still remember you, and what for?
- 60. What did your bedroom look like when you were fifteen?
- 61. What is the first job you were actually proud of?
- 62. Who did you call first when something good happened at nineteen?
- 63. Which family rule did you break the most often?
- 64. Which street could you still walk around with your eyes closed?
- 65. What story does your family tell about you that you are tired of?
- 66. What did you want to be good at as a child and never became?
- 67. Who was your first real friend, and do you know where they are?
- 68. What was the first thing you bought with money you earned?
- 69. What did you do after school when nobody was watching?
- 70. What did your parents get right that you plan to copy?
- 71. What is the longest you have gone without telling anyone something?
- 72. Which holiday from your childhood do you still measure others against?
- 73. What is the first news event you properly remember?
- 74. What did your home smell like on a Sunday afternoon?
- 75. Which of your relatives would I get along with best?
- 76. Which rule you grew up with turned out to be unusual?
Questions about the future
Fifteen that tend to turn into plans, so keep a pen nearby.
- 77. What should the next twelve months have in them that this year did not?
- 78. Which country do you want to see before you are sixty?
- 79. What would you like our home to have that it does not have?
- 80. What should we both be able to cook without a recipe by summer?
- 81. What is a trip we keep talking about and never actually book?
- 82. What do you want to have stopped doing within a year?
- 83. Where would you live if we could work from anywhere for six months?
- 84. Which tradition would you like us to start this year?
- 85. What would you like to own much less of by next year?
- 86. Which friendship do you want to put more effort into?
- 87. Which project of yours should I ask you about in six months?
- 88. What would make next winter easier than the last one was?
- 89. What would you like to be learning when you are seventy?
- 90. What is one thing you would like us to save up for together?
- 91. What do you want our Sundays to look like in five years?
Deep questions to ask your boyfriend or girlfriend early on
Fourteen for the first months, while you are still learning the manual.
- 92. How do you usually act when you are stressed, so I can recognize it?
- 93. What does a perfect day off look like for you, hour by hour?
- 94. How much time alone do you need in a normal week?
- 95. What do your friends tease you about most often?
- 96. How do you like to be comforted: talked to, left alone, or fed?
- 97. What is a deal-breaker for you that has nothing to do with romance?
- 98. How did the people who raised you handle an argument at dinner?
- 99. What are you like in a room full of strangers?
- 100. What is the first thing you do after bad news?
- 101. How do you feel about plans changing at the last minute?
- 102. What do you spend money on without thinking twice?
- 103. What are you working on about yourself right now?
- 104. How often do you like to hear from somebody you are dating?
- 105. What made you say yes to a second date with me?
Guess my answer: questions to see if you know your partner
Fifteen with a winner. One of you reads, the other guesses, and a correct guess is a point.
- 106. Guess my answer: what do I order when I cannot decide?
- 107. Guess my answer: which friend would I call at two in the morning?
- 108. Guess my answer: what is the first thing I do when I am angry?
- 109. Guess my answer: which of my things would I grab in a fire?
- 110. Guess my answer: which job in this home do I like least?
- 111. Guess my answer: how do I take my coffee when nobody is looking?
- 112. Guess my answer: which compliment lands best with me?
- 113. Guess my answer: what was my most irrational purchase last year?
- 114. Guess my answer: which relative do I speak to most often?
- 115. Guess my answer: what would I do with a free Saturday and no phone?
- 116. Guess my answer: which of my habits would I most like to change?
- 117. Guess my answer: what did I worry about most last month?
- 118. Guess my answer: which of my own stories do I retell the most?
- 119. Guess my answer: which song do I know every word of?
- 120. Guess my answer: what would I choose as a last meal?
When an answer stings, or nobody wants to talk
A common failure here is an answer that lands badly and a reply that defends. The Huang paper puts the weight on the follow-up question as the thing that reads as listening, which makes the useful move obvious: ask what that was like for them.
The second failure is treating a pass as a verdict. Write the refused question on one of the blank cards, put it back in the jar, and let it come up another evening. Among the questions to ask your significant other, the one that got a pass tonight may be the one worth asking next month.
The third is running long. You agreed on nine, you are on question thirty, and it is half past midnight. Stop at the number you named, while both of you still want more.
Nobody expects this to work
The same paper found that people do not anticipate the effect at all: that held both for the people asking and for outsiders reading the transcript afterwards. So the move keeps feeling risky long after it has stopped being risky.
Felt closeness after forty-five minutes, seven-point scale
The same game on paper: 48 cards, four themes
A list on a phone has one problem: the phone. The printable deck is forty-eight square cards you cut out once, keep in a jar, and hand across the table.
- Pages in the set
- Five: one rules sheet and four sheets of twelve cards
- Paper
- US Letter and A4, portrait, print at 100%
- Themes
- Memories, Future, Everyday, and one called Would You Know
- Designs
- Minimal in one color, and Color with a shade per theme
- Blank cards
- Two on the rules sheet, for questions you write yourselves
- Versions
- Blank PDF, and a fillable PDF you can type into before printing
Three of the themes work like the categories above: one of you reads, both of you answer. The fourth theme is the game. On a Would You Know card your partner guesses your answer and keeps the card if the guess is right; whoever holds more cards at the end picks the next date night.
Questions people ask
How many questions should we do in one evening?
Five to nine is plenty. In the experiment behind that number, one partner had to put at least nine questions into a fifteen-minute conversation. That was already the busy end of a normal chat, according to the pilot the researchers ran first.
What are good deep questions to ask your boyfriend or girlfriend?
The ones that ask for a specific memory. “What did loving somebody look like in the house you grew up in” gets an answer; “do you believe in true love” gets a shrug. The first and the sixth categories above are built that way.
Is there a list of 100 questions to ask your partner?
There are 120 in the list above, numbered inside seven categories, so any hundred of them is one. For a shorter set, take a single category: the deep ones are numbered one to twenty, the fun ones twenty-one to forty.
Are there printable questions to ask your partner?
Yes, as a card deck: forty-eight cards over five pages, in Letter and A4, free and without an email. The download is in the section above, and the deck has two blank cards so you can add your own questions.
What questions work over text?
The fun category and the guessing category, because both survive being answered in one line. Save the deep and the love categories for a time when you are in the same room and neither of you is about to be interrupted.
What if my partner gives one-word answers?
Answer the question yourself first, at the length you were hoping for, and ask one follow-up about their short answer before you move on. If it still does not open up, the evening is the problem, and rule 6 on the deck exists for exactly that.
Is there an app for this?
Alpacto is the app for what comes after the answers. When an answer turns into a plan, it becomes a pact you both sign, with a deadline, a standard of done and what it is worth in coins. It is on iPhone and Android.
One answer, one pact
Many of the answers in the future category are plans: a trip, a skill, a Sunday you both want back. The rules sheet of the deck says the same in one line. Alpacto turns one of those plans into a pact between two people, with a reward you agreed on in advance.