List
20 Hot Trivia Questions to Ask Your Partner Tonight
Not icebreakers. Twenty questions built to produce an answer you have not heard before, even after years together.
By Magda6 min read
In short
The best questions are specific and about a moment rather than a preference. Ask one at a time, answer it yourself second, and never follow an answer with advice.
The problem with most question lists for couples is that they ask about preferences. What is your favourite, would you rather, do you prefer. Preferences produce summaries, and after a few years together you have already heard each other's summaries.
Questions that work ask about a moment. A specific one. Moments produce details, and details are where the things you did not know are still hiding.
Here are twenty, grouped by how much they ask for.
Easy openers
Low stakes, but not filler. These establish that the answers here are allowed to be long.
- What is the most recent thing that made you laugh when you were on your own?
- What did you think this relationship was going to be, in the first month?
- Which of your own habits do you find slightly embarrassing?
- What is something you are quietly good at that never comes up?
- When did you last change your mind about something that mattered?
Number two is the strongest of these. Almost nobody has said their early expectations out loud, and the gap between what they expected and what happened is usually funny in both directions.
About us, specifically
Now narrow it to the two of you. These are the ones most likely to produce something new.
- What is a moment between us that you think about more than I would guess?
- When have you felt most like a team with me?
- What is something I do that makes an ordinary day better?
- Is there a version of me from earlier that you miss?
- What is something you have never told me because it did not seem important?
Question ten is the highest-yield question in this article. The category of things that are true, harmless and never mentioned is enormous, and the only reason nothing from it ever surfaces is that nobody asks.
Warmer
These move into attraction and desire without going straight to the deep end.
- What is the most attractive thing I have done that I was not trying to be attractive doing?
- Where were you the first time you thought about me that way?
- What is something you find attractive in general that has nothing to do with looks?
- Which part of the last time do you still think about?
- When do you most want to be touched and least often are?
Fifteen tends to produce an answer that surprises both people, because the honest answer is often something entirely non-sexual and nobody has ever mentioned it.
Revealing
Only if the previous group went well.
- What is something you want that you have never asked for?
- What do you assume I would say no to?
- When did you last hold something back to avoid a conversation?
- What would you want more of if there were no logistics involved?
- What is one thing you would like me to ask you about more often?
Twenty is a good place to stop, because it is the question that generates the next twenty.
The three rules that make it work
Ask one at a time. Running a list back to back turns the evening into a questionnaire and the answers get shorter with every item.
Answer it yourself, second. Going first sets the standard: if you give a three-word answer, so will they, and if you give a paragraph they will feel obliged to. Let them set it.
Never follow an answer with advice. This is the one that breaks the game. Someone shares something they have not said before, and the reflex is to help. Do not help. Ask one follow-up question and let it sit there.
If any of these produce something heavy, that is not a failure. Say thank you, keep it, and move on. The point of a good question is not to solve anything on the spot.
The hot trivia in Kindu Sexy runs on the same principle: a large pool of specific, moment-based questions rather than preferences, served one at a time so the conversation after each one has room to happen.
Questions about this
How many questions should we do in one sitting?
Five or six is plenty. The value is in the follow-up conversation each one starts, and running through twenty in a row turns it into an interview.
What makes a question actually work?
Specificity. A question about a particular moment produces a memory; a question about a preference produces a summary, and summaries are things you have both already heard.
Is it cheating to answer first yourself?
It is a good idea, but go second. Answering first sets a length and a level of honesty that the other person will match, whether or not it suits them.