Questions to Ask to Know Your Friends and Partner Better

You have known them for years. You know their chai order, the name of their manager and which uncle they avoid at weddings. Then somebody asks what they are worried about at the moment, or what they would do with a free year, and you realise you have no idea. Not because you do not care. Because nobody asked.

A lot of closeness between adults is built out of questions like that, asked often and answered honestly. Here is which questions work, how to ask them without it feeling like an interview, and how to keep asking long after the novelty wears off.

Why do questions make people feel closer?

Because a good question invites a small, safe piece of self-disclosure, and closeness grows out of many of those, traded back and forth. In a well-known 1997 study, the psychologist Arthur Aron and his colleagues had pairs of strangers take turns answering questions that grew gradually more personal over 45 minutes. Those pairs ended up feeling closer than pairs who spent the same time on small talk. The study is where the famous 36 questions come from.

Two parts of that design matter more than the exact questions. Both people answered, so nobody was being interviewed. And the questions escalated slowly, so each answer felt like a natural next step rather than a leap. You can borrow both with the people you already know.

What makes a good question to ask a friend or partner?

A good question is specific, easy to start answering, and about the person's actual life. "How are you?" fails all three, because it has a stock answer. "What was the best part of your week?" passes all three, and the answer usually leads somewhere.

A few tests before you ask:

• Can it be answered in one sentence, with room to say more? People open up more when the first step is small.
• Is it about now rather than forever? "What are you looking forward to this month?" is far easier than "What do you want from life?"
• Would you answer it yourself? If not, do not ask it.
• Does it have a wrong answer? Avoid anything that sounds like a test, especially with a partner.

What are some good questions to ask?

Start light and let the conversation decide how far to go. These work with friends, partners, siblings and parents alike, with small changes in wording:

• What was the best part of your week, and the worst?
• What is something small that made you laugh recently?
• What are you looking forward to this month?
• What has been on your mind more than usual lately?
• Which food from your childhood would you happily eat every day?
• What is one thing you are proud of that nobody has noticed?
• Who was your closest friend at school, and what happened to them?
• What would you do with a free Saturday and nothing you had to do?
• What is a habit of mine you have quietly picked up?
• What have you changed your mind about in the last few years?
• What do you wish people asked you about more?
• What is one thing we should do together before the year ends?

What should you ask your partner?

Couples tend to run out of questions in a particular way. You talk every day, but mostly about logistics: who is picking up the groceries, when the plumber is coming, whose parents you are seeing on Sunday. The fix is not a quarterly deep talk. It is one question a day that has nothing to do with logistics.

Good ones for partners lean towards the present and the future. "What is something you want more of in your week?" "What did you need from me today that you did not get?" "Where do you want us to be this time next year?" Ask the harder ones on a calm day, never in the middle of a disagreement, and answer them yourself every time.

How do you ask without it feeling like an interview?

Go first, or answer too. The quickest way to make a question feel safe is to offer your own answer alongside it: "I realised I have been dreading Mondays less lately. What about you?" It turns a quiz into a trade.

Ask one question, not five. Follow the answer with "what happened then?" or "why do you think that is?" instead of moving to the next item on your list. And let people pass. "Skip that one" should always be an acceptable reply, especially with family, where some topics carry decades of history. There is more on that in staying close to family when you live away from home.

Over text, a question works better than "we should catch up", because it gives the other person something to reply to. If your conversations tend to die before they start, read why "we should catch up" never actually happens.

How often should you ask?

More often than you think, and smaller than you think. One light question every day or two keeps you current on each other's lives in a way an occasional long call cannot. With a partner, or a close friend in another city, a question a day is a good rhythm. With a big friend group or the extended family, every few days is plenty, or nobody keeps up.

The number matters less than the habit. What you are protecting is knowing who the other person is now, rather than who they were when you met. Friends who move cities feel this most, and staying close to a long-distance friend depends far more on staying current than on talking every day.

Where Orbit fits

You do not need an app to ask good questions; a note on your phone with a few saved ones works. What Orbit adds is the habit. Each circle gets a question to answer together, one a day for a couple or a long-distance pair and less often for bigger groups, and anyone in the circle can ask one of their own. You answer in a tap or a sentence, and you see what the others said only once you have answered yours.

The answers do not vanish into a chat. What you've learned in Orbit keeps every question your circle has answered, newest first, each answer under the name of the person who gave it. If you want, it writes a short summary of who you are together and suggests a question to ask next, free once every three days for each circle, and anyone can keep their own answers out.

When an answer turns into "we should do that", the plan can live in the same Orbit circle, with a time, a vote and RSVPs. Orbit is on Android in a closed test, and you can join the waitlist.

Frequently asked questions

What are the 36 questions to fall in love?

They are the question set from Arthur Aron's 1997 closeness study, in which pairs of strangers took turns answering 36 increasingly personal questions over about 45 minutes. They were designed to build closeness between strangers rather than to make anyone fall in love, though they are usually shared that way. With people you already know, smaller and more frequent questions tend to work better than all 36 in one sitting.

What questions should you avoid asking a friend?

Avoid questions with a right answer, questions that put someone on the spot in front of others, and anything they have asked you to leave alone. Money, weight, marriage and children are common sore points, in Indian families especially. If you are unsure, ask whether they want to talk about it before you ask the question itself.

How do you get someone who gives one-word answers to open up?

Make the question smaller and more concrete, and answer it yourself first. "Anything good this week?" invites a one-word reply, while "What did you eat on Sunday?" is oddly easier to answer at length. Some people simply open up slowly, so keep the questions light and let them choose when to go deeper.

Can asking questions help a relationship that feels distant?

Often, yes, because distance usually means you have stopped being current with each other rather than stopped caring. Start with easy, warm questions and keep at it for a few weeks before you judge. If the distance comes from a real conflict, questions alone will not fix it, and a direct conversation or a counsellor may be what helps.

Is there an app for asking questions with friends or a partner?

Orbit gives each circle, including a circle of two, a question to answer together, and shows everyone's answers once you have answered yours. A shared note with a list of questions does the same job if your group remembers to use it.

Pick one question from the list above and send it to one person today. Answer it yourself in the same message.

Then do it again later in the week. Closeness is rarely one big conversation. It is a lot of small ones, and the people who seem to know each other best are usually just the ones who kept asking.