Bintou Keita: Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?

The question

Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?

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.

Bintou Keita

UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General; head of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

I don't believe in that. I think we are bringing who we are in the work.

Melissa Fleming, United Nations, 3 February 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

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Mary Tyler Moore

Well, first of all I’d like to change the word “deplore” to “dislike.” I guess that I’m almost a hermit; I don’t enjoy going out that much, and so I tend to take my happiness from the joys of my home and my husband.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, May 2012 source ↗

Isabel Allende

Impatience and being bossy.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 December 2024 source ↗

Tina Turner

I don’t deplore anything about myself, but I am a perfectionist.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 April 2023 source ↗

Michael Flatley American step dancer

I don’t give myself that much thought.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 August 2024 source ↗