My default will always be to go for the worst-case scenario and that is something that I am unlearning.
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
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
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.
I can be an overthinker and a vicious self-critic.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 March 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 243 →Stealing from the elderly and then acting real cocky about it.
My health anxiety. I am a bit of a hypochondriac. I hate that about myself and I’ve worked extensively in therapy on changing it.
Self-criticism.
More from Olly Alexander
View profile →It’s the stuff about my appearance that sticks. I read I had a face like a crumpled napkin and teeth that could till a field.
Like something or someone is part of your DNA, the fabric of who you are.
Early in my career I got really close to being one of the kids in the Narnia movie. I remember being crushed.
Jill Nalder. Lydia West played her character in It’s a Sin. She was on the wards with nurses caring for patients who were dying [of Aids] when lots of people wouldn’t go near them.
At the Mighty Hoopla festival, Kimberley and Nicola from Girls Aloud joined me on stage for a Girls Aloud song. I completely forgot the words.
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