Questions to ask your girlfriend: 160 for every mood

Pick the question for the moment

The same question works on a drive and falls flat over a text. Match the kind to where you are and how long you've been together:

How to make it a conversation

• Ask about one moment. "What was the best day of your last trip?" gives her something to picture. "Do you like travelling?" doesn't.
• Go second. Let her answer, then give yours. If she asks you first, answer properly; a one-word answer from you invites one back.
• Stay on the answer. "What was that like?" and "Who else was there?" are worth more than the next question on the list.
• Keep it two-way on the hard ones. If you ask about her worst year, be ready to talk about yours.
• Remember what she says. If she mentions the cake her grandmother made, that cake is next month's surprise. Questions are how you find out what to do for her.
• Skip the gotcha. Questions about exes or jealousy asked to catch her out end the game for good.

Fun questions to ask your girlfriend

Quick and silly, for the car or a night in. Argue with her answers; that's half the fun:

1. Which three songs would be on the soundtrack of your life?
2. What's the most useless fact you know by heart?
3. If you could swap lives with a fictional character for a week, who?
4. Which terrible TV show do you secretly enjoy?
5. Which snack would you defend in court?
6. What's your most unpopular opinion about birthdays?
7. If you could be instantly fluent in one language, which one and why?
8. What's the silliest thing you've cried at?
9. Which of your friends would you want with you in a zombie apocalypse?
10. What's the strangest compliment you've ever received?
11. If you opened a shop, what would it sell?
12. What's a trend you were briefly very committed to?
13. Which celebrity do people say you look like, and do you agree?
14. What's your go-to order at a place you've never been before?
15. What would you name a racehorse?
16. If you could ban one phrase from the world, which one?
17. Which childhood toy would you buy again right now?
18. What's the worst job you can imagine being great at?
19. Mountains or sea, and how strongly do you feel about it?
20. What's the pettiest reason you've ever stopped liking someone?
21. If your pet could talk, what would it complain about?
22. What's the best thing you've ever won?
23. Which era's fashion would you bring back?
24. What's the most adventurous thing you've eaten?
25. If you had a warning label, what would it say?

Questions to get to know your girlfriend

For the first months, or the parts of her life you've never asked about:

1. What's a meal from your childhood you'd eat tonight?
2. What was your bedroom like when you were fourteen?
3. Who was the first person who really believed in you?
4. What's a place you spent hours in as a teenager?
5. What's something you were good at in school that nobody would guess?
6. Which grandparent are you most like?
7. What's the first concert you went to?
8. What was your first job, and what did it teach you?
9. Which friend has known you the longest?
10. What's a book you read at the right moment?
11. What did you have to unlearn after you left home?
12. What's a smell that makes you feel safe?
13. What does your family argue about at dinner?
14. What's the bravest decision you've made so far?
15. What did you collect as a kid?
16. What's something you still do the way your mother taught you?
17. Which city have you felt most at home in?
18. What's the best present you've ever been given, by anyone?
19. What's a habit you've tried to break and can't?
20. What do you do the minute you get home?
21. What's the most spontaneous thing you've ever done?
22. What subject could you talk about for an hour without notes?
23. What's a question you wish people asked you more?
24. Which year of your life would make the best story?
25. What's something on your bucket list that surprises people?

Deep questions to ask your girlfriend

Keep these for when there's time and neither of you is tired. One a night is plenty:

1. What part of yourself took you longest to like?
2. Where does your mind go when you need a break?
3. What's a fear you've outgrown?
4. Who do you go to for advice, and why them?
5. What's the best thing someone has ever done for you without being asked?
6. What's a decision you'd make differently now?
7. What do you wish more people understood about you?
8. What does a good life look like to you, in one sentence?
9. When did you last change your mind about someone?
10. What are you most grateful for this year?
11. What's the hardest goodbye you've had?
12. What makes you feel calm when everything is loud?
13. Which of your parents' choices do you understand better now?
14. What's something you're proud of that you rarely mention?
15. What does kindness look like to you?
16. What would you do with a year where nothing could go wrong?
17. What's a part of your past you'd like me to understand?
18. When have you felt most alone, and what helped?
19. What does trust mean to you, in practice?
20. What's a belief you've held onto through everything?
21. Who would you most like to thank and never have?
22. What do you want to be remembered for?
23. What's something you're still grieving?
24. What would you tell your younger self about love?
25. What do you need on a bad day that you rarely ask for?

Romantic questions to ask your girlfriend

Once you've been together long enough to have a history. She has to think about you to answer:

1. What makes you feel loved?
2. Which ordinary day with me do you remember for no reason?
3. What's your favourite way to spend a weeknight with me?
4. What's a moment with me you'd like to live again?
5. What do I do that makes you feel safe?
6. What's something about us that would surprise your friends?
7. What's a thank-you from me that stuck with you?
8. What's a song that's ours now, even if we never said so?
9. What did you think on our second date that you didn't say?
10. What's an opinion of yours I've come around to?
11. What's the most thoughtful thing I've done, by your measure?
12. What do you love about how we argue, or wish was different?
13. Which of our trips would you go back to first?
14. What's a little ritual of ours you'd defend?
15. What do I still not know about you?
16. Which of your friends did you most want me to meet?
17. What would you like me to notice more?
18. What do I say that you'd like to hear more often?
19. What's the best surprise I've ever given you?
20. What makes you laugh about us?
21. If our relationship had a title, what would it be?
22. What's a small thing I do that you always notice but never mention?
23. What do you think we've got better at?
24. Where do you feel closest to me: at home, out, or somewhere else?
25. What's one thing you'd like us to celebrate that we never do?

Questions about the future and what she wants

These tell you whether you want the same things. Most are fine a few months in; the ones about marriage, children and money wait until it's serious:

1. What are your expectations in a relationship?
2. What does a typical Saturday look like in your ideal life?
3. Where in the world would you like to live for a year?
4. What are you working towards right now?
5. What would you do if you could start a new career tomorrow?
6. What do you want your forties to feel like?
7. How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
8. What's one skill you want to have learned by next year?
9. How do you like to spend money, and where do you like to save?
10. How much time alone do you need each week?
11. How close do you want to live to your family?
12. What's non-negotiable for you in a partner?
13. How do you want to handle the things we disagree on?
14. What does commitment mean to you?
15. Do you want children, and when you picture it, what do you see?
16. What do you think of marriage?
17. How would you want us to split the work at home?
18. What's a trip we should save up for?
19. What do you want to have done before you're fifty?
20. What's one thing you'd like us to be doing together five years from now?

Flirty questions to ask your girlfriend

Playful, not crude. Send one in the middle of her day, or ask on a slow evening at home:

1. What was the moment you knew you liked me?
2. What's the most attractive thing a person can do without trying?
3. What did you wear on our first date, and did you change three times?
4. Which of my hoodies do you plan to steal next?
5. What's the best compliment I've given you?
6. What's a date you've been hoping I'd suggest?
7. Where's the best place we've ever held hands?
8. What's my most charming bad habit?
9. What would your perfect lazy morning with me look like?
10. What's a song you'd put on a playlist for me?
11. What's one thing I do that makes you blush?
12. If you could plan our next night out, where would we go?
13. When do you think I look my best?
14. What would you say if you could only send me three words today?
15. What do you like most about the way I look at you?
16. What's a memory of us you replay when you can't sleep?
17. Which of our photos do you secretly look at the most?
18. What do you think I noticed first about you?
19. If I booked a surprise weekend, where would you hope we were going?
20. What should I wear on our next date?

Questions to ask your girlfriend over text

Short enough to answer between meetings, with a photo if she likes. Send one at a time, and reply to what she says before you ask the next: a text that picks up her answer ("Wait, three coffees? What happened this morning?") does more than ten new questions. Ten to start with:

1. What's on your desk right now?
2. Best thing you've eaten today?
3. Rate your day out of ten. What would make it an eleven?
4. What's the last photo in your camera roll?
5. What song is stuck in your head?
6. How many coffees so far today?
7. What's one thing that made you smile this morning?
8. If a plane ticket appeared right now, where would it be to?
9. What are you looking forward to tonight?
10. Describe your day using only three emojis.

Questions for a long-distance girlfriend

For the call when neither of you has news. They make the other city feel closer:

1. What's the view from where you're sitting?
2. Who made you laugh today?
3. What's the weather doing to your mood?
4. What's something in your city I'd love?
5. What's the first thing you want to do when we're in the same place?
6. Which of your weekly routines could I join on a video call?
7. What did you cook this week?
8. What's keeping you busy that I haven't heard about?
9. What's something from here you miss that I could send you?
10. What are we doing on the first night back together?

The 36 questions, if you want to go deeper

The famous "36 questions" come from a 1997 study by the psychologist Arthur Aron and colleagues. Pairs of strangers took turns asking 36 questions in three sets, each set more personal than the last, and felt closer afterwards than pairs who asked each other small-talk questions. The Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley publishes the full list and instructions: set aside 20 to 45 minutes, take turns so you both answer every question, and move on to the next set at each third of the time even if you haven't finished.

Couples use them too. The lesson that carries over to everything above: take turns, and let it get more personal slowly.

Play them, or send them

Our free question cards are a deck to pass around on one phone. How well do you know me? turns her answers into a quiz you can play on two phones from different places, and Would you rather? is there for a lighter round. For a digital gift that asks the questions for you:

If you'd rather say something than ask, try our cute things to say to your girlfriend, and for more ideas for her, the digital gifts for your girlfriend.