Funny fortune cookie messages for someone you know

What makes a fortune cookie message funny

Real fortunes are written so that anyone at any table can read them. That's why they're vague, and it's why yours can be funnier: you know exactly who is opening it. Most funny fortunes use one of four shapes:

Keep the fortune's voice: short sentences, the present or future tense, no emoji, no "lol". The deadpan is what makes it work.

Funny fortune cookie messages for anyone

These work for a party, a plate at the office or a family dinner, where you don't know who'll get which cookie:

• "You will find what you are looking for. It was in your pocket."
• "A thrilling time is in your near future. Then a nap."
• "Someone is thinking of you. It is the cookie. The cookie misses you already."
• "You will reply to an email from three weeks ago and act normal about it."
• "Good news will come to you by phone. You will not answer it."
• "The stars say yes. The stars have not met your schedule."
• "An old friend will reappear. It is the leftover pizza."
• "You are about to make a decision. Choose the one with snacks."
• "Your charm will open doors today. Not literally. Use the handle."
• "You will read this fortune out loud. Everyone will wait politely for you to finish."
• "Your lucky day is today. It was also yesterday. The cookie is generous."
• "This fortune is printed on recycled paper. It used to be a better fortune."

Funny fortune cookie messages for your boyfriend or girlfriend

Here the fortune can be about one person. Swap each bold part for something they actually do, and the line goes from a joke to their joke:

• "You will say you're not hungry. You will then eat half of my dinner."
• "A cold foot approaches. It is yours, and it is heading for my side of the bed."
• "You will lose the remote again this week. Look under you."
• "Great wisdom is in your future. It will arrive about three minutes after the argument about the map."
• "Your talent for singing in the shower will soon be noticed. By everyone next door."
• "You will hear a song and say 'this is my song'. You have eleven of those."
• "The cookie sees you choosing something to watch for forty minutes. The cookie is tired."
• "Your future holds many blankets. Most of them were mine."
• "A mysterious stranger will text you. It is me, from the next room."

Write ten, then read them out loud to yourself. Keep the ones where you can picture their face reading it, and cut any that would only be funny if you explained them.

Funny fortune cookie messages for a friend

• "You will promise to leave at ten. The cookie has seen you leave at ten. It was the next day."
• "A voice note awaits you. It is nine minutes long and about a minor inconvenience."
• "You will be right about someone's new date again. Try not to enjoy it."
• "Your plans this weekend will fall through. You will be the one who drops them. Joyfully."
• "Someone close to you is about to borrow your jacket. Forever."
• "The group chat will go quiet. Do not worry. They are writing about you."
• "You will finally reply to my message. The cookie believes in miracles."

Sweet and romantic fortune cookie messages to finish on

A plate of jokes needs one that isn't. Hand it over last, keep it short, and keep the fortune voice so it still sounds like it came out of a cookie:

• "Someone thinks you are the best part of an ordinary weekday. They are right."
• "A long and happy future awaits you. I would like to be in it."

Turning an in-joke into a fortune

The lines above are a start, but the fortune that gets screenshotted is the one nobody else could have written. Three steps:

1. Find the habit. Something they do so reliably you could bet on it: the alarm they snooze twice, the way they announce they'll "only be five minutes", the shopping list they always forget.
2. Make it a prophecy. Start with "You will", "Beware" or "Soon", and write the habit as if it's fate. "Beware the second alarm. It lies."
3. Add the twist. A short second sentence that undercuts the first, or a detail so specific it can only be them. "Soon you will go out for milk. You will return with everything except milk."

Some starts that turn almost anything into a fortune: "The stars warn that…", "Someone close to you will soon…", "Your future contains…", "Do not trust…", "An unexpected…".

Lucky numbers that mean something

Real fortunes have a row of lucky numbers on the back. For someone you know, make every number a small secret they can decode:

• The time on the clock when something happened: 11 · 47 for the minute your flight finally landed.
• The score from the game where they beat you and never let you forget it.
• The number of the bus you both took every day for a year.
• How many times they've rewatched the same show this year, or how many plants they've kept alive.
• A count of something only the two of you would get: 3 times you both forgot where you parked, 1 karaoke song nobody has recovered from.

Keep it to five or six numbers with dots or spaces between them, like a real slip, and don't explain them on the slip. Let them ask.

How to get your fortunes into a cookie

There are three ways, depending on how much time you have:

• Bake them. Homemade fortune cookies have to be folded while they're hot from the oven, a few at a time, so print and cut the slips before you start. Try two or three first; the first batch rarely folds well.
• Swap the slips in bought ones. Ease the paper out of the open end with tweezers and slide yours in, folded small. It's fiddly and some cookies will crack, so buy more than you need.
• Send them. If they're far away, or you'd rather spend the evening writing than baking, a digital gift skips the oven completely and still has the crack-open moment.

For more ideas for a small surprise on an ordinary day, see the just because gifts. Fortunes also make a good monthly ritual: there's a fortune cookie idea in our monthiversary ideas, and the open when letter ideas use the same plate for short open-when notes.