10 types of questions to ask someone close

Getting to know someone is not a mechanical process completed simply by spending time with someone.

It is necessary to fully understand their way of thinking and acting, and for that on many occasions we must take the initiative. That is why Knowing the types of questions that we can ask those close to us is a help so that there are no "blind spots" in the relationship.

• Recommended article: "50 questions to get to know a person better"

Types of questions to ask people in your immediate environment

These are the main categories of questions that we can use to get to know more of those we already know to a great extent, and, incidentally, ourselves.

1. Questions about the relationship itself

The first group of question types are those that refer explicitly to the type of relationship that the other person believes they have with oneself. These are questions that it is better if they are posed to well-known and intimate people so as not to generate rejection and reactivity. However, they can be very beneficial in adapting one's own expectations to the framework of the relationship held by the other person.

2. Questions about childhood

People close to you can give us access to more personal information about your past., something that will help us understand them and empathize with them even more. Those that refer to childhood are one of those types of questions that, when inquiring about the first years of a person's life, allow us to intuit what events helped shape their personality.

3. Questions about yourself

People with whom you have a close relationship offer the possibility of getting to know oneself better from another point of view, since they are characterized by being more sincere than the rest. That makes it possible for us to ask them things about ourselves. It can come as a surprise to us how differently we are seen from ourselves, even when it comes to those aspects of our personality that we think define us.

4. Questions about your own weaknesses

Technically, these types of questions are part of the previous one, but their importance means that they have to be highlighted. They give us the possibility of knowing the public image we give and the aspects that others consider more improvable about ourselves.

5. Questions about one's appearance

This would also belong to the category of questions about oneself, but it is more circumstantial. It is used to ask for honest opinions about the aspect that is shown, and they are important in those cases in which we care highly or moderately about the image we give. However, these types of questions can obsess us if we become "addicted" to them, so it is better to reserve it for special occasions. After all, beauty canons have a lot of power and can become too normative.

6. Questions about future plans

In this type of questions it is not only possible to be interested in the more formal aspects of the plans that the other person has (such as the career path she wants to develop), but that it is also possible to refer to expectations and passions that drive the other person to draw up plans to achieve certain objectives.

7. Questions about what-if scenarios

This type of question is very general and therefore can be posed to people we have just met, but when we use them with close people we can ask some hypothetical questions that only make sense in these cases. For example: do you think we would be good roommates? This way delves into what the other person thinks about the relationship and the way of being of each one.

8. Questions about third parties

People close to us are more capable of offering us honest opinions about other people. that are not totally modeled by social pressure and the desire to belong to a group. This makes their opinions on the subject often more nuanced and rich in detail, and therefore useful for learning more about the way others are.

9. Questions about political opinions

In many cultures, it is frowned upon to ask people you don't know very well about political opinions., and that is why they are reserved for people from the closest and most intimate environment. Inquiring about this can serve to understand the other person's way of seeing the world, and to know their ethical scale and the priorities they have.

10. Questions about the family situation

Family problems are a great taboo in our society, but in some cases we can become close enough to someone to ask them about it. In this way we will know how we can help that person, if there are problems, and we will also better understand his behavior and his way of thinking.