The question
Which trait in yourself do you like least?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-righteousness and a phobia of embarrassment.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 November 2025 source ↗
Bad timekeeping.
I talk over people all the time.
My lack of foreign language skills.
I’m certainly not going to tell it here.
Human, evolving and faithful.
A lifelong sleepover.
I’m the happiest right now. I can see that I’m in a kind of sweet spot: my parents are alive, my kids are little, my wife is hot and my body doesn’t hurt.
I cried last week after talking about marriage equality with my daughters. My oldest let slip that she believed that if the supreme court overturned Obergefell, she wouldn’t have parents any more. I felt angry with my country and ashamed that I didn’t consider the possibility that she might think that.
To kids I bullied in school. I have apologised and I will continue to. To repay those things karmically, I will watch my kids’ hearts like a hawk for signs of hardening or any distortions of empathy that they might develop.
Greed, lack of empathy. Same thing.
John Malkovich, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Trevor Noah, Ben Okri, Richard Schiff, Indira Varma
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