Monthly Archives: May 2026

The Questions We Ask

Assumptions, Emotions, Intimacy, Psychology, Relationships, , ,

The questions we ask determine the answers we receive.  Really think about that for a moment.  It is super important. 

Here’s one example of how a question leads to an answer.  If a person is already overwhelmed and we ask “What can I do to help?”, the response is usually “Nothing.”  But, if we ask “When can I drop off dinner?”, we are much more likely to get a specific answer and a concrete way to help.

If we ask “Why are you angry with me?” or “What did I do wrong?”, the person will come up with something.  After all, it is impossible to be in a relationship and never annoy each other.  What if, instead, we asked “What do you like about me?  Telling me one thing will help me calmly listen to whatever has made you upset with me.”

If we ask “How can I fix this?”, we forget that, for any relationship to work, the key word is we, not I.  No one person can fix a relationship.

It seems to me that the most difficult question to ask anyone is, “Do you love me?”.  Underneath that question is a statement.  The statement is: “I love you.”  The fear is our statement will be rejected; our fear is that our love will not be reciprocated. 

So rather than asking the question, we look for ways to protect our hearts.  We set up “tests.”  If they do X, then they love me; if they remember Y, then they love me.  Alternatively, we set up walls.  A wall can involve choosing people we think will love us more than we love them.  We tell ourselves that every relationship is unbalanced, so we might as well be the one with the “upper hand”.  We define having the upper hand as being loved more than we love.  We believe that the unevenness will keep our hearts safe. 

This all leaves me with so many questions.  Are tests a good way to determine if we are loved?  There have been times when someone “failed” to know something about me, but made me feel loved nonetheless.  Their love was demonstrated by their desire to make me happy.  Do walls keep our hearts safe or do they prevent our hearts from experiencing deep love?  Are all relationships unbalanced?  Perhaps, the truth is that, if a couple is together for many years, they will need to take turns in reigniting the spark?  They will do that because life can wear a person down and those who love that person see an opportunity to remind them of their worth and importance. 

If we ask “Do you want to end this relationship?” we are asking for, and will get, a yes or no response.  We phrase it this way because we believe we are protecting our heart.  Even if they say yes, at least we brought it up.  On some level, we think we participated in the choice to end it.  The risk, however, is that the other person hears a desire to end it.  I wonder what would happen if the question posed was “How can we move forward from here?” It seems to me that this open-ended phrasing allows an endless number of possibilities for the future. 

If we want to stick with the most difficult question, perhaps we can at least rephrase it to “I love you.  Do you love me?”. That combination opens a feedback loop that makes connection possible and potentially deeper.

We’ve Said Hello — What Comes Next?

Communication, Intimacy, Loneliness, Psychology, Relationships

When adults meet new people, we tend to connect by asking questions. What do you do? Where do you work? Where do you live? In other words, we often approach initial contact as if we are investigators gathering key information before we decide if we are going to share anything about ourselves.

I cannot help but wonder: what if, when we first meet someone, we switched our tactics and offered something about ourselves instead?

This is, in fact, how most of us initially began conversations. Children tend to start conversations talking about themselves. They share information freely, talk about their interests, and then ask if the other child shares that interest. Children make friends much more easily than adults do, so what makes us abandon what seems to be a very effective strategy?

I have a feeling it relates to a misunderstanding of what it means when we say children are egocentric. After observing children in controlled, scientific settings, psychologists determined that pre-school aged children find it difficult to see the world from any perspective other than their own. For example, if they read a book to someone else, they do not turn it so the other can see the pictures. They assume the other sees the pictures in the book because they can see the pictures in the book.

This came to be interpreted, incorrectly, that if children are egocentric, they must also be egotistical. Egotistic refers to a person who is self-absorbed, self-centered, and disinterested in anyone other than themselves. An egotistical person can see other perspectives; they simply aren’t interested in them. Children have difficulty seeing another perspective, but they are definitely interested in other children.

I say all this because I’ve come to believe that we have been taught that asking the other person questions demonstrates that we are not self-centered; it also demonstrates that we are interested in them. As a result, we hesitate starting a conversation by sharing something about ourselves. But what if asking questions makes the other person feel “on the spot” and sharing about ourselves helps the other person feel comfortable? What if sharing something about ourselves actually makes us seem open and interesting?

Sharing is, in fact, a wonderful skill. So, after we meet someone, what if we switched our tactics and opened a conversation by offering something about ourselves? For example, we can make statements like, “I’m looking forward to watching [a specific sporting event],” or “I was out walking the other day and I saw this unusual bird. Looking for birds is something I enjoy,” or “I just read a great book”. After we share what we find fun, interesting, or enjoyable about the activity, we can then ask, “How about you? What do you enjoy?”.

True connections are not unidirectional; they involve a feedback loop. Next time you’re meeting someone new, or someone you don’t speak to often, I encourage you to take the challenge to share something about yourself before asking others to share about themselves.

Previously published on Medium Apr 15, 2026