Rebecca Lucy Taylor: Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?

Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?

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.

Recorded Rebecca Lucy Taylor said elsewhere, not written here

My internalised misogyny that still manages to cloud some of my thinking.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 November 2025 source ↗

Others on this question

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Norman Lear

The rare moment I don’t believe in myself enough.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, June 2021 source ↗

Jack Dee

I can go for weeks without opening the mail. I can look at a letter that has just dropped through the letterbox, wonder what it is and then just shred it.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 November 2024 source ↗

John Lewis U.S. Representative from Georgia, 1987–2020; Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 1963–1966

My tendency to skip meals.

Recorded Vanity Fair, Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 6 December 2019 source ↗

Judd Apatow

My bottomless pit of need. Soft erections. It was hard to keep it to just two.

Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, July 2009 source ↗

More from Rebecca Lucy Taylor

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Question What is the worst job you have done? Craft & work

At a pub in Rotherham. I was a really bad waitress and I ended up being demoted to chopping the potatoes and I even got fired from that.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 November 2025 source ↗

Question Which living person do you most admire, and why? Values & belief

Julie Hesmondhalgh – she’s the kindest, brightest, most truthful woman. She’s so talented, works hard, cares about the right things, puts her energy in the right places. I adore her.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 November 2025 source ↗