We searched high and low for the most engaging, thought-provoking, and downright strange conversation starters. With some help from Reddit and BuzzFeed writers, we pulled together a pretty comprehensive list.
Whether you're on a first date or just doing your best at the annual office holiday party, these questions should be enough to banish even the most awkward of silences. Crickets, begone!
1. Which vegetable do you trust the least?
2. How many french fries is it okay for a friend to take before you tell them to order their own?
3. Would you rather take a cold shower on a hot summer day, or be wrapped in a warm blanket on a cold winter day?
4. What is the most recent concert you've been to?
5. I think everyone has an obsession. What’s yours?
6. What music do you listen to?
7. Would you rather take a nap inside a giant warm burrito or between two giant slices of warm French toast?
8. What’s your favorite Star Wars movie?
9. Have you ever eaten something from off the floor?
10. What would 10-year-old you think of you now?
11. Do you ever talk to yourself?
12. Do you know how to whistle?
13. What's your favorite smell?
15. What was the last thing you couldn't get off your mind?
16. Do you believe in ghosts?
17. Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?
18. Do you believe there's meaning behind your dreams?
19. Can you speak more than one language?
20. Do you have a middle name?
21. What's the least important thing that's very important to you?
22. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
23. Do you believe everything happens for a reason?
24. Do you prefer to text or call?
25. What can you talk about for hours?
26. Do you wash your feet in the shower?
27. Have you ever been in love?
28. If you could bankrupt any person, company, country, or organization, who or what would it be?
29. If you could, would you have a personal trainer, personal chef, housekeeper, or personal glam squad?
30. If you could pick up a new skill in an instant, what would it be?
31. What’s one superpower you would NOT want?
32. What's your favorite word?
33. What song would you pick to play as you walked up to bat at a professional baseball game?
34. What's the best part of your day?
35. We all know about red flags, but what do you consider to be a "green flag" when you meet a new person?
36. Ignoring your actual age, is there an age you feel like you're stuck at?
37. What's your favorite condiment?
38. How do you like your eggs?
39. What conspiracy theories do you believe?
40. Would you rather be able to use toilet paper only as a paper towel, or vice versa?
41. What's one place you've never visited that you'd like to travel to, and one you've been to and want to go back to?
42. If you had a nemesis, what kinds of qualities would they have?
43. If you could train your falcon to steal only one dessert, which one would you choose?
44. What do you hate?
45. How many cookies could you put in your pocket at a fancy party before you became too self-conscious?
46. If you could learn any musical instrument, what would it be?
47. Have you ever drizzled liquid soap on your fingers in a zigzag pattern, as if your fingers were hot dogs?
48. What is the proportion of icing to cake in an ideal cupcake?
49. If you were to fall asleep face-first into a soup, which soup would you want it to be?
50. What's a better name for corn dogs?
51. If you found yourself trapped in an elevator stacked floor to ceiling with one type of pastry, which pastry would you want it to be?
52. After all the maple syrup you've enjoyed from them, have you even once offered a plate of pancakes to the trees?
53. Which fruit do you think would be most disappointed by the name we gave it?
54. What's a better name for potato chips?
55. You just became a member of the Spice Girls. What Spice name do you make up for yourself?
56. Do you like mushrooms, or do you think they taste like dirty rubber?
57. If you could have a song play every time you entered a room, what would it be?
58. Which number do you find least trustworthy?
59. What traditional phrase should we inexplicably say after someone yawns?
60. Are you comfortable with the level of mandolin popularity right now?
61. What's the best nickname for a tambourine?
62. Which bread do you think you could throw the farthest?
63. Would you have sex with a clone of yourself?
64. If spiders were always playing tiny guitars, would this make you more or less afraid of them?
65. Do you agree that clapping is really weird when you think about it? Literally slapping your hands together to honor someone else?
66. Your friend Todd is leaning out the window, asking you to toss him a donut. How many stories up could Todd be for you to still be confident in your ability to be on target with the donut?
67. Between a dolphin and a duckling, which would you trust more reading the evening news?
68. If you could intervene during any historic event, changing history, what would it be?
69. If all your furniture sprang to life, Beauty and the Beast–style, which piece would scare you most?
70. Which vowel do you feel most sorry for?
71. If you had to pick an actor (man or woman) to portray you in a movie about your life, whom would you pick?
72. A horse and an elephant claim to be best friends. Which one do you think is more likely to have a second best friend that they secretly consider to be closer?
73. Should we rebrand salads as "leafbuckets"?
74. What is something I wouldn't believe about you?
75. What's your opinion on the literacy of snakes?
76. How would you spell the sound a hand dryer makes?
77. If you were invited to four different animal dance parties happening simultaneously, whose party would you choose: the snake, horse, eagle, or Chihuahua?
78. Where do you want to be in an hour?
79. Aliens have landed and they want coffee. Do you give them black coffee or coffee with cream?
80. What's a better name for toast?
81. What's a better name for candy corn?
82. On a long road trip, would you rather a chinchilla or an eagle be in charge of the music?
83. If you were invisible for 10 minutes, right now, what would you do?
84. What's a better name for pepperoni pizza?
85. Which of the other planets should we trust the least?
86. If you had to get a tattoo designed by either a squirrel or a raccoon, which would you choose?
87. What is your drink of choice?
88. If you transformed into a baby goat for 60 minutes each time the hour hand on a clock hit a certain number, which two hours of the day would you want this to happen? (Obviously, it has to be the same two hours every day.)
89. If pasta started growing in place of your hair, which kind would you prefer? (Sorry, angel-hair is NOT an option.)
90. What material (besides swords) would you like your throne to be made of?
91. Which one would more likely plan an extravagant destination wedding — a bat or a crocodile?
92. If you could pick a day to relive over and over, Groundhog Day–style, what day would it be and why?
93. It's movie night! Which one would you rather choose the film: a badger or a koala?
94. If you had to intimidate someone while silently eating a sandwich, which sandwich would you choose?
95. Which pastry should we shoot into space as a peace offering to hostile civilizations?
96. What's a better name for oatmeal?
97. How many consecutive pen clicks would you listen to before you said something to your colleague?
98. If you had to choose between a llama and a penguin preparing your tax return, which one would you trust?
99. What is something that is important to you that you never really talk about?
100. If we added a new number (between 4 and 5), what should we call it?
101. What's a better name for breadsticks?
102. If they were a team of superheroes, which of the Cobb salad toppings do you think would be the leader: tomatoes, avocado, Roquefort cheese, hard-boiled eggs, bacon, or chicken?
103. Which animal do you think would be most insulted by the cracker made in its likeness?
104. What's a better name for crinkle-cut fries?
105. What is your go-to Super Smash Bros. character?
106. If you had to spend one month of every year just petting dogs, which month would it be?
107. What's a better name for waffles?
108. Which one would give better relationship advice: a sloth or an orca?
109. Which one would have better taste in furniture?
110. What are you proud of but never have an excuse to talk about?
111. If kitchen appliances came to life, which one would they elect as their leader?
112. Which one would be a more understanding boss: a dove or a Shetland pony?
113. What's a better name for seltzer?
114. What's your favorite holiday?
115. Have any birds followed you today?
116. What are some good weird questions to ask someone to get to know them better?
This post contains content written by Nathan W. Pyle, Morgan Murrell, Terri Pous, and Anna Borges. It was compiled by Laura Frustaci.