Procrastination.
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Self-destruction.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 June 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 243 →Forgetting. Or, worse yet, not recognizing who my real friends are.
Self-denigration, an old strategy for extorting praise from people. (“I am a terrible person.” “No, you’re a wonderful person and we all love you.”)
Father John Misty
American musician
I bore myself constantly.
More from Adam Kay
View profile →A reviewer once called me “artistically bankrupt”, and it doesn’t feel like reviews can get much worse than that.
When my cold toes drain the heat from his warm ones, but he doesn’t mind at all and is happy for our tarsal temperatures to meet in the middle.
In the one photo I’ve seen where my smile looks convincing – I’m four years old, so I’m guessing then. But I just won a Bafta and that felt amazing, too. So, roughly every 40 years.
People who barge into a lift instead of standing aside for anyone exiting should be dipped in kerosene and fired into the sun.
I’ve never been upgraded on a plane.
I could have done without being sexually assaulted, or having an eating disorder, or pushing myself to breaking point, but every chapter of my life brought me here.
More on identity & self
Also answered this
Fay Ripley, Jacqueline Wilson, Jane Asher, Julian Clary, Kathy Lette, John Grisham
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All identity & self questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject