Questions to Ask to Spot a Narcissist
Questions for the early stages of getting to know someone, whether that is dating, a new friendship or a business partnership, that show how a person handles being wrong, describes people who are no longer around, and responds when something is not about them.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
Who were you closest to five years ago, and are you still close?
This sounds like small talk and it maps a friendship history. People drift apart for ordinary reasons, so one lost friendship means nothing. A pattern where every past closeness ended badly, and always through the other person's fault, is worth noticing.
- 2
How did your last relationship end?
Listen for whether the other person exists as a person in the story or only as a problem. Accounts in which an ex was unstable, jealous or crazy, with no version of events where the speaker contributed anything, are the thing to note.
- 3
Who in your life is allowed to tell you when you are wrong?
Most people can name someone immediately: a sibling, an old friend, a partner. Difficulty answering, or an answer that amounts to nobody, tells you there is no correcting influence, which matters far more than any single incident.
- 4
When did you last apologise, and what for?
Watch the shape of the apology rather than whether one happened. Answers that arrive as apologies for how someone else felt, or that end up explaining why the apology was generous, are different from an account of what they did wrong.
- 5
What is something you were wrong about?
Comfortable answers involve a job, a prediction, an opinion held at twenty. Being wrong about how they treated a person is a much harder admission, and whether they can get anywhere near it is the useful part.
- 6
Tell me about a boss or teacher you respected.
Ask for admiration of someone with authority over them and see if anyone qualifies. Some people can only describe former bosses as idiots or as people who failed to recognise them, which is a pattern rather than a run of bad luck.
- 7
What is the last thing someone did for you that you did not expect?
The follow-up matters more: what did they do about it. Notice whether receiving something generous produced gratitude, discomfort, or a quick account of why they deserved it.
- 8
Tell me about a time you needed help.
Needing help is ordinary and describing it requires admitting a limit. Answers that convert the story into a demonstration of resilience, or that cannot recall an instance at all, are telling you something about how vulnerability gets handled.
- 9
What happens for you when someone criticises your work?
Everyone dislikes criticism, so the honest answer is not that it is fine. What you are listening for is what happens next: whether it gets considered, or whether the critic's motives immediately become the subject.
- 10
How do you talk about people who are not in the room?
You can often answer this yourself by simply listening, since you have already heard how they describe colleagues, exes and family. Asking it directly lets you compare their self-description with what you have observed.
- 11
What do you think people get wrong about you?
A common answer here is that people mistake confidence for arrogance, or find them intimidating. Framed that way, the supposed criticism is a compliment, and noticing how often that happens is more useful than any one instance.
- 12
When you tell me about that argument, what would the other person say happened?
This asks for the opposing account, not agreement with it. Some people produce a fair version easily. Others cannot construct one at all, or produce a caricature, and the inability to hold two accounts at once is the observation.
- 13
What happens when plans change at the last minute?
Small logistics reveal a lot, because there is no reason to perform. Notice whether inconvenience is treated as bad luck or as something someone did to them deliberately.
- 14
Is there anyone you have lost touch with that you regret?
Regret requires holding yourself responsible for something with no benefit to doing so. An answer with a name and a specific cause is different from a general statement that people come and go.
- 15
What did you do the last time someone else got the credit?
This is uncomfortable for almost everyone, so a rueful, honest answer is a good sign rather than a bad one. What you are watching for is a story where the credit was stolen and a correction had to be made publicly.
- 16
Who do you admire, and what specifically do they do well?
Naming an admired person is easy. Describing a specific strength in them that the speaker lacks is harder, and answers that circle back to a shared quality suggest admiration is functioning as self-description.
- 17
What are you working on about yourself at the moment?
The everyday answer involves patience, fitness, drinking less, being better at replying. Answers about becoming more successful, or a flat statement that nothing needs work, are worth sitting with rather than reacting to.
- 18
What would the person who likes you least say about you?
Ask late, and lightly. Some people give a wry accurate answer that shows they know their effect on others. Others answer only with the critic's supposed motive, which never gets round to the criticism itself.
- 19
Has anyone ever told you that you hurt them, and what happened next?
Almost everyone has been told this at least once. The question is what followed: a conversation, a change, or the end of the friendship on the grounds that the other person was too sensitive.
- 20
How do you want to be talked about by people who used to be close to you?
This asks about legacy in a small, personal register rather than a grand one. It also gives an opening to talk about the people already in that category, which is the most informative part of the whole conversation.
How to use these questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
What this can and cannot tell you
What this can and cannot tell you
- Narcissistic personality disorder is a clinical diagnosis made by a qualified professional over time. No list of questions can establish it, and treating a conversation as a test is unfair to the person and unhelpful to you.
- What these questions can show you is behaviour: how someone handles being wrong, how they describe people who are no longer around, and whether anyone is allowed to correct them.
- Self-centred behaviour is common and is not the same thing as a disorder. Plenty of people answer badly on a given day because they are tired, defensive or newly out of something painful.
- If you are trying to make sense of a relationship that is affecting your health, sleep or sense of reality, that is a conversation to have with a therapist or a doctor rather than a question set.
Asking without interrogating
Asking without interrogating
- Spread these across weeks of ordinary conversation. Asked in sequence they read as a screening, and people answer screenings carefully.
- Answer each question yourself first. Reciprocity gets you a truer answer and keeps the exchange from feeling one-sided.
- Ask for stories rather than self-assessments. Nobody describes themselves as unkind, but anyone will tell you what happened last Christmas.
- Stay neutral when an answer lands badly. Visible reaction teaches someone which answers you are looking for, and after that you learn nothing.
What to watch for over time
What to watch for over time
- Consistency across relationships matters more than any single answer. One difficult ex is a story, a decade of them is a pattern.
- Notice whether other people are described with any interior life at all, or only in terms of what they did for or against the speaker.
- Track how you feel after these conversations. Reliably feeling small, confused or in the wrong is data, even when nothing specific was said.
- Compare what you are told with what you can see. Accounts that keep needing correction, or that shift when a third party is present, are worth taking seriously.
- Early intensity, unusually fast closeness or sweeping declarations are not evidence of anything on their own, but they are worth noting alongside how the person handles the first disagreement.