Small talk can be incredibly boring. Most of us hate being asked over and over about our jobs, our hobbies, and our favorite genres of music or movies. When it comes to getting to know someone we just met, we want more than just surface-level interactions.
Whether you’re meeting a potential romantic partner or just a new friend, it’s always more interesting to get straight down to the deeper parts of each other and skip the small talk. Having a list of questions to ask someone you just met will help you build that connection so much quicker.
Building a deep connection can take years if you only ever talk about your day-to-day lives. Asking questions that will delve deep into each other’s history, family, and the way you think will have you feeling instantly connected.
Questions To Ask Someone You Just Met If You Want to Get to Know Them on a Deep Level
Personal Thoughts
1. What Is One Thing You Would Change about Yourself?
Getting to know someone you just met just as they are right now is only one version of themselves. You’ll learn a lot more about a person by asking them how they perceive themselves. You’ll learn what qualities in themselves they don’t like, and usually, this will reflect what they don’t like to see in others too.
How they answer this question will also tell you a lot about them – do they choose something in their personality or the way they look?
2. What Is Your Favourite Thing about Yourself?
A person’s favorite thing about themselves will highlight what they value most and is usually something they would appreciate seeing in other people too. Again, it can be very telling if they choose a physical attribute over a personal quality.
3. Do You Have Any Religious or Spiritual Beliefs?
It’s not essential to every friendship or relationship that all of your beliefs match up. People of different religions can have long happy friendships or romantic relationships.
What is important is that you understand and value each other’s beliefs, be they religious or spiritual. Getting to know what someone you just met believes in is one of the best ways to get an idea about their core values.
4. What Are Your Political Beliefs?
Political beliefs are very telling of someone’s values. Especially these days, political divisions are very wide. There are huge differences between parties and sides of the political spectrum.
It can be a touchy subject at times, but it’s one of the most important questions to ask someone you just met if you want to get to know them deeply.
5. Are You an Introvert or Extrovert?
Whether a person is an introvert or an extrovert will tell you a lot about how they see the world. It will also reveal how they spend their time and what they prioritize in their life.
Sometimes, we think we can guess where someone sits on the spectrum even if we’ve only just met them, but you never truly know unless you ask. Some introverts can appear very outgoing, while some extroverts are reserved without being around the right company.
Knowing whether someone you’ve just met is an introvert or extrovert will also give you a glimpse into what it would be like to be friends, and if you’re compatible.
6. What Are You Most Thankful for?
Understanding what a person is thankful for will tell you a lot about what they most value in their lives. It could be their health, their family, or their wealth – the answer will allow you to decide if you are compatible people even if you’ve only just met.
7. What Accomplishment Are You Most Proud of?
Not only is this a great question to ask someone you’ve just met if you’d like to get to know them on a deeper level, but it will also open some doors to discussing their past experiences.
They’ll likely reveal something that they experienced and felt was difficult because overcoming these difficulties usually forms our proudest achievements in some way.
8. What Is Your Deepest Fear?
With a question about fears, you are likely to discover how deep someone you just met is. Their answers may range from something as shallow as “spiders” to something as intimate as the death of a parent or loved one. This will let you know how much of a deep thinker they are.
9. Where in the World Are You at Your Happiest?
Getting to know where their heart lies is often the best way to get to know someone you’ve just met. Some key parts of their personality may be explained by these transformative places. They might have revealing stories that explain why that place is so essential to them that will give you greater insight into their soul.
10. To You, Is Happiness a Feeling of Calm or of Excitement?
Though we all feel it, happiness is a different sensation to all of us. While some people are at their happiest when feeling safe and comforted, others prefer excitement and adventures as a way of feeling happy.
Getting to know which of these, or something else entirely, brings about happiness to the person you’ve just met will really help you to understand them.
Past Experiences
11. What Is Your Favourite Memory?
The memories a person treasures will tell you a lot about what they value in their life, which is essential when you want to get to know someone you just met on a deeper level. Our favorite memories reveal the people, places, and feelings that are most important to us.
12. What Is Your Worst Memory?
Similarly, the memories they would rather forget will reveal a lot too. They will reveal some harder times in their life that likely shaped who they are. We are often more transformed by our negative experiences than by positive ones because of the lessons they force us to learn.
13. What Is One Thing in Your Past You Would Undo If You Could?
Everyone has regrets and mistakes they made that they aren’t proud of. Some of the best questions to ask someone you just met are all about these times and the things they would rather erase from their past. Their responses will let you get to know the deeper, darker parts of them that we usually hide.
14. When Was the Last Time You Cried, and Why?
Everybody cries, it’s healthy and natural. It might be over a genuinely tragic event, overwhelming stress, or just a movie. Either way, if you want to get to know someone you’ve just met more deeply, starting with what they’ve cried about recently will have you on the right track.
15. What Is One Thing You Regret Not Doing?
We often talk about the things we’ve done in our past that we regret doing. These are important parts of ourselves and a great way to get to know someone new, but the things we never got around to doing are just as important.
It could be choosing a different career path, not boarding that plane, or missing an interview, these things are telling of our goals and who we wish we had become.
Future Hopes
16. If You Knew You Were Going to Die Tomorrow, How Would You Spend Today?
Perhaps the most revealing parts of us are hidden in our final moments. If you want to get to know someone you’ve just met on a much deeper level, then you can’t go wrong with asking questions about what they would do with their final days. Questions like this will reveal what they value the most in their lives.
17. What Do You Hope People Say at Your Funeral?
When people speak at a funeral they speak of the very best parts of a person. What we want our loved ones to say at our funeral reflects what we hope we are to them and what we hope to become throughout our lives. Some of the best questions to ask someone you just met revolve entirely around the legacy they hope to leave behind.
18. What Would You Do If There Were No Consequences?
If we’re honest, there’s probably something we would all do if we knew we would get away with it. Most of us are suppressed by consequences such as being sent to jail, so our true nature is never seen.
If you want to really get to know someone you’ve just met, delve into the things they would do if they could get away with it. Their true nature will be revealed to you.
19. What Is at the Top of Your Bucket List?
Everybody has dreams. We all have goals we want to achieve. Travels, adventures, and experiences are usually the things we covet the most. When you meet someone new, asking them questions about their bucket list will help you get to know all about their dreams and what they want the most out of life.
20. What Is a Skill You Would Like to Learn?
Similarly, we all secretly wish we had a skill or talent that we never took the time to learn. Understanding what this is for someone you just met will help you get to know them on a much deeper level.
Childhood and Family
21. Are You Friends with Your Family?
A person’s relationship with their family is very revealing of their personality. If you want to get to know someone you’ve just met, you can’t go wrong asking about their family. How close they feel they are with their family, be it parents, siblings or more distant members will reveal a lot about their values.
22. What Is Your Relationship with Your Parents Like?
Sharing stories is a great way to get to know someone on a really deep level and opens up opportunities for some good questions to ask them. We all have lots of stories about our families growing up. Asking about their parents allows them to tell stories all about their childhood.
You can also ask about how their relationship has changed. Has it transformed for the better, or worse, since they became an adult?
23. Which Parent Are You Closest to?
Describing what bonds someone you just met more so to one parent more than the other will reveal a lot about what they value in a person. The traits they connect to and appreciate most will tell you a lot about what they’re looking for in the people they surround themselves with.
24. What Did You Want to Be Growing Up?
The way we were as children can be very telling of who we have become as adults, for better or worse. Talking about the big dreams a person had when they were young and how they were formed, will really help you get to know someone you just met on a very deep level.
Often, as children, we are inspired by our experiences, such as wanting to become a zookeeper after a single trip to the zoo, or a policeman because your grandfather was. There is almost always a great story to tell.
You could also ask if they still have those dreams, even if they ended up on a different path, do they secretly still wish on some level that they had pursued those dreams?
25. What Would You Change about the Way You Were Brought Up?
For the most part, our upbringings formed who we are as adults. That said, there are still parts of us that developed when we were adults, away from the guidance of our parents. These are parts that we built ourselves out of our own experiences. These also form the goggles we look back on our childhoods with.
We all have at least some complaints about the way our parents brought us up. That complaint might just reveal something we really value now, such as having more control, feeling our opinion is more valued, or having more freedom.
Getting to know a person on a deeper level doesn’t have to be a waiting game or something reserved for lifelong friends. If you have the right questions to ask someone you just met, you can get to know them deeply and build a great connection straight off the bat.
As long as you’re both open to sharing some more intimate details of yourselves and your past, childhood, and hopes for the future, you can soon get to know them much better than you know anyone else.
Remember to be gentle and understanding with both your questions and when receiving answers. Being vulnerable like this can be difficult for some and is a privilege not to be taken for granted.
