Playing 20 questions

... could be an effective tool in getting to know each other, especially when you don't know your future life partner all that well prior to your engagement.

Apart from checking on my memorization of the Quran (Juz Amma actually, beginning from easy surahs like An-Nas onwards), my fiancé insists on us playing 20 questions almost on a daily basis. He realised that we did not know much about each other prior to our engagement and he insisted on us getting to know as much as we could about each other in the short span of time we have before our wedding. Hence - playing 20 questions...

In the beginning, he did most of the asking – at that time, I was still busy trying to acknowledge him in my mind as the guy I’d agreed to spend the rest of my life with. I simply echoed his questions, but gradually I came out with my own list of queries. Nowadays, we neither put a limit on the number of questions nor limit the time to answer – one could always mull on a difficult question and revert to the other the next day or whenever we feel like answering it.

The questions vary – from mundane queries such as “Which flavour of tom yam do you like most?” and “Do you like fruity chewing gum?” to serious topics on financial-related matters, household chores distribution, how to handle it if one of us get affected by a terminal disease, which couple we look up to as model for a stable relationship, how to discipline and befriend our future children, etc.

I’d been advised by many to have an MoU of some sort with him prior to the wedding.
“Chances are he’ll try to please you now – and you can hold to some of his sweet promises later on in life,” a friend said. Still, somehow I tried not to make him promise lots of things during our 20-questions sessions. For me, what’s more important is that somehow playing 20 questions with each other give us time to know each other better, to focus on what our future marriage will mean to us as individuals, as a couple, as a family.

I found setting aside time to actually talk things out, to better understand each other’s expectations, helps us both to separate myth from reality. Yes, we had had our fair shares of disagreements – and I am expecting more to come in the future – yet no matter how differently we talk, look at things, solve problems, fight - it always boil down to one conclusion – our differences are the reasons we can complement each other so well.

I used to pray to meet a partner with whom I have enough in common and enough differences so that we can indulge in similar interests together yet never tire of learning from each other.

Now, I’m discovering with each passing day that I might have met just the right person…