Return the question — they’re hoping you will

Here’s a small secret about getting-to-know-you questions: the person asking often chose that question because it’s the one they’re hoping to answer. How was your weekend, have you seen anything good lately, are you doing anything for the holidays — answer it, and then hand it straight back.

It sounds too small to matter. The evidence says otherwise. One person who asks after everyone’s weekend out of plain curiosity noticed, with some sadness, that almost nobody returns the question anymore — people narrate their Saturday in full and stop, and the conversation dies with a thud. The rare person who finishes with and yours? stands out instantly, not because the move is clever but because it flips the spotlight around, and being handed the spotlight is what most people quietly came for.

The return does three jobs in three words. It keeps the conversation fed — no scrambling for a next topic, because the next topic is them. It teaches you who they are, one honest answer at a time. And it keeps the exchange from orbiting only you, which is the trap answering-without-returning builds by accident, even for modest people who’d be horrified to know it.

What about you? costs nothing, works on nearly everything, and is the entire technique. The person who asked is waiting.