The question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim standing question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A questionnaire, documented across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Dishonesty. It destroys relationships. It’s something celebrities especially have to guard against because people are prone to tell you what they think you want to hear rather than the truth.
Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, August 2020 source ↗
The inability to stop talking about themselves when they’re not being interviewed.
People who aren’t polite.
The inability to listen. Inauthentic vocal registers. Calling anything other than food “delicious” or “yummy.”
Cruelty, and also general rudeness and unkindness. I’ve always told my children: Don’t ever find entertainment in someone else’s discomfort.
Being surrounded by my friends and family. Just listening to them interacting, laughing, sharing. It is the culmination of everything I could have hoped for.
I don’t think that is tough, because if you have an idea of something meaningful to communicate, you can move forward on that. You might not be successful in communicating what you want to communicate, but at least you have an idea of something that needs to be said, or something that you think should be said, and I think you go from there.
My college years, when everything was possible and I felt physically invulnerable.
Barack Obama has shown us how to be a politician guided by intelligence, integrity, and compassion.
I don’t think that is tough, because if you have an idea of something meaningful to communicate, you can move forward on that. You might not be successful in communicating what you want to communicate, but at least you have an idea of something that needs to be said, or something that you think should be said, and I think you go from there.
Loyalty. Not fawning, but a loyalty based on our shared love and history that fosters compassion and forgiveness.
Ally McCoist, Rafael Nadal, Yogi Berra, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Cathy Rigby, Lolita Chakrabarti
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