The Best Question to Ask at a Party

One wrong question can ruin the whole atmosphere of a meeting with family or friends. Some questions are boring, intrusive or too ambiguous; others are intended to provoke – or are interrogated with no real interest in an answer.

And then there are those who come out of the park, lighting up the square and bringing everyone together.

“A good question opens the whole room,” says Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters. “It opens a path of connection and creates the geography of conversation from which you can travel anywhere together. A beautiful question is the fundamental building block of conversation.”

The best questions, she adds, are those that lead to stories rather than opinions and invite specificity. They are also energizing, make people want to engage, and are relevant to everyone in the room. “A good question is accessible whether you’re 7 or 77,” Parker says. “It doesn’t feel like homework or work, and everyone in the group is excited to answer it and are also very interested in hearing each other’s responses.”

We asked Parker for the best question to ask at your next social gathering.

The #1 question to ask

Parker considers his repertoire of favorite conversation topics to be “magic questions” that turn small talk into real discussion. One of them is particularly ideal for end-of-year evenings with friends or family: “What three songs would constitute the soundtrack of your year, and why?”

Part of the reason she loves this issue is its cross-generational appeal. Imagine the conversations each person’s choices can spark: Your grandfather might want to know who Tate McRae is, while your 6-year-old niece has never heard of Madonna. “A really good question has weight,” Parker says. The songs are so heavily influenced by personal and social factors that the question “will lead to so many other conversations.”

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Maybe your sister is in the middle of a bittersweet season and mostly relates to a Brandi Carlile song, while your cousin is in her Taylor Swift loving era and your resilient mother has I will survive in rehearsal. You’ll learn a lot about your companions, especially if you ask thoughtful follow-up questions: How long have you felt this way? What can we do to support you? Why this particular artist? Have you seen them live? What other songs do you recommend from them? Additionally, there is a built-in opportunity to reflect on your own year.

An added bonus: you’ll end up expanding your musical repertoire. “An Indian grandfather could share Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and one would ask, ‘Who?’ What?” Parker says. “Someone else shares Glenn Miller, and then someone shares Scarlet Pleasure, and someone else shares Toni Braxton.”

Fortunately, music is easily shareable. You can stream each person’s songs on Spotify while you’re all together or even create a playlist of selections from the entire group that everyone can listen to. “It creates a musical soundtrack for the rest of your time together,” says Parker. “It’s a generative, fun, accessible question that has a rich afterlife.”

A less musical alternative

If you’re not a big music fan, your group might enjoy this slight variation on Parker’s favorite question: “If your year were a book, what would its title and subtitle be?”

“A title requires brevity,” she says. “It gives an idea of ​​your year without giving the full report.” Of course, by asking for the right follow-ups, you can dig much deeper.

When Parker asked this question in meetings, she particularly appreciated people’s captions, which are often funny and hilarious. A book titled My year as a motherfor example, could have this subtitle: Poop, pee and the best year of my life. Or maybe this one: A Practical Guide to Staying Sane.

“They’re just a little casual and it’s fun,” she says.

And if there’s still time after dessert…

Get creative when you think of questions that everyone in your meeting can have fun answering. Parker, who teaches her children the power of good questions, was thrilled when her daughter recently asked this (potentially loaded) question at a family gathering: “What’s the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done that was worth it?”