Questions to Ask on a Speed Date
Twenty questions for the few minutes you get with one person at a speed dating event. They are ordered for a short round: an easy opener, several that get past job titles quickly, and a close that leaves you something to decide on when the bell goes.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How did you end up here tonight?
Why ask it
The answer sorts people fast: a friend dragged them along, they booked it alone, they come every month. It also starts them talking about the last hour rather than about themselves in general, which is much easier under time pressure.
Is this your first one of these?
Why ask it
Small piece of information, large payoff. Veterans have a script and will run it; first-timers are nervous and usually relieved if you go first, so the answer tells you how much of the round you should carry.
What did you do today, before you came out?
Why ask it
A question about the last few hours gets a better answer than a question about their life. What they mention sketches an ordinary day for them: a shift at work, the gym, an hour spent deciding what to wear.
What part of town are you in?
Why ask it
Distance decides whether a second date is realistic long before compatibility does, and it takes ten seconds to establish. Asking early saves you both from finding out after a conversation that was going well.
What do you do all day, and do you like it?
Why ask it
The second half is the useful half. Most people recite a job title automatically, and the pause before they say whether they enjoy it carries more information than the title does.
What's the last thing you got properly obsessed with?
Why ask it
Obsession is more revealing than interest, and the wording gives them permission to be enthusiastic rather than presentable. Watch whether they can talk about it without checking your face for approval.
What does a normal Sunday look like for you?
Why ask it
Sundays are undefended. Nobody performs on a Sunday, so the answer describes the real rhythm of their week instead of the version that goes on a profile.
What's the last thing that made you laugh out loud?
Why ask it
You find out what their humour is pointed at: a friend, a video, themselves, somebody else's bad luck. It is one of the quickest ways to tell whether a whole evening together would be fun.
Are you more of a plans-in-advance person or a decide-at-six person?
Why ask it
Planning style produces more everyday friction between couples than most dramatic incompatibilities. It is also light enough that people answer honestly, because it does not feel like a test.
What do your friends come to you for?
Why ask it
What friends bring them describes their role in other people's lives better than any self-description: advice, a lift, a laugh, a crisis at midnight. Struggling to answer at all is worth noting.
What did you want to be when you were ten?
Why ask it
Childhood ambitions are easy, often funny, and occasionally point at something they still want. The main value is that the question relaxes people, which is worth arranging early in a short round.
What's something you could happily talk about for an hour?
Why ask it
This locates the subject where they stop being polite and become interesting. If nothing comes to mind you have learned something, though at a first meeting it may only mean nerves.
What's a small thing that makes your day worse than it needs to be?
Why ask it
Minor irritations show what they notice and how they complain, and you would meet that far more often than their reaction to a crisis. If the answer is a person rather than a thing, listen to how they describe them.
Where did you grow up, and are you glad you left or glad you stayed?
Why ask it
Two questions in one, and the second is the interesting half. Where they are from is trivia; how they feel about leaving or staying touches on family, ambition, and how rooted they are.
What's the best thing you've eaten this month?
Why ask it
Food is safe, produces real enthusiasm, and hands you a specific place you could go together. It also quietly tells you whether they cook, eat out constantly, or barely think about it.
How do you feel about mornings?
Why ask it
Sleep schedule shapes shared life more than almost anyone expects, and this costs nothing to ask. A large mismatch is worth registering even when everything else is going well.
What's the last risk you took?
Why ask it
Risk means different things to different people, and the story they reach for shows what counts as brave to them: leaving a job, starting a hard conversation, travelling alone. Vagueness suggests nothing uncomfortable has happened in a while.
What are you hoping for out of a night like this?
Why ask it
Asking plainly, without any edge, suits a format built for efficiency, and most people are relieved to be asked. If the answer is evasive, treat that as the information rather than pressing again.
If we bumped into each other on a Saturday afternoon, what would you be doing?
Why ask it
This works better than asking about a perfect day because it stays real and specific. You get a plausible weekend, and it gives you an easy way to suggest something concrete later.
Is there anything you'd want to know about me that I haven't said?
Why ask it
Handing over the last thirty seconds tends to produce the most revealing moment of the round, because what someone chooses to ask says more than what they choose to tell. It also ends the conversation cleanly instead of trailing off while you wait for the bell.
Making four minutes count
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How a round actually works
Most events run rounds of three to eight minutes with a bell or a whistle between them, and you will do somewhere between eight and fifteen of them in a night. That has two consequences. First, you have time for roughly three real questions and one exchange of follow-ups, so an opener that costs ninety seconds is expensive. Second, everyone you meet is being compared with a dozen other people an hour later, so being specific is what makes you memorable. A conversation about one odd thing beats a tour of their entire biography.
The shape of a good round
- 1Say your name and ask something about right now. The room, the queue, how they got here, anything that does not require them to summarise their life.
- 2Ask one question that gets past the job title, and follow their answer rather than moving to your next question.
- 3Volunteer something of your own without waiting to be asked. Rounds where one person interviews the other feel like an audition to both people.
- 4Somewhere in the middle, establish one practical fact: which side of the city they live on, or roughly what their week looks like.
- 5In the last thirty seconds, say plainly if you enjoyed it. "I'd like to keep talking to you" is worth more than any question.
Between rounds
- Write two words on the card as soon as they move on. By round nine you will not remember who had the dog and who had the boat.
- Note what you actually felt, not just what they said. A tick next to "easy to talk to" is more use later than a list of hobbies.
- Reset your posture and take a breath. Carrying irritation from a bad round into the next one is the commonest reason a good match goes nowhere.
- Do not compare notes with friends mid-event. It shapes what you notice for the rest of the night.
- Drink some water and eat something. Most of the flatness people blame on the format is three hours of talking with nothing to eat.
Rounds that are not working
If they are giving one-word answers
Switch to something concrete and easy: food, commute, where they grew up. Nerves usually read as boredom, and a specific question is easier to answer than an open one.
If they are talking without pause
Let it run. You are learning something, and interrupting rarely helps. Use the time to notice whether they ever ask you anything, which is the real answer to the round.
If you already know it is not going anywhere
Stay friendly for the remaining minutes rather than checking out. The room is small, people notice, and the cost of politeness for three minutes is low.
If something makes you uncomfortable
You are not obliged to finish the round. Organisers at these events expect this; catching a host's eye and stepping away is normal and does not require an explanation.
What to skip
- Long hypotheticals. Superpowers, dinner with anyone in history, and desert island questions eat the minutes and produce answers people have given before.
- A rehearsed list. Working through identical questions all night gets you comparable data and no actual conversations.
- Interviewing about exes. Whatever you learn in four minutes will be a fragment of a story you cannot evaluate.
- Praise for how they look, beyond a passing compliment. In a timed round it takes up space that could have been a conversation.
- Testing them. Trick questions and provocations get you a defensive stranger rather than an honest one.