Long-term couples know a lot of each other’s answers. A list of questions runs out after a few evenings. A word keeps going, because it changes as you change.
This guide sets up a date night around one word on a card and three follow-up questions. You can use the Thesis deck, the free online table, or a word written on a napkin.
Start with a word
Say the word “Trust” to two people who’ve been together for ten years. For one, it may mean open phones. For the other, it may mean never needing to look. Neither is wrong, and you may never have said yours out loud.
A word gives you both the same starting point. Each of you takes it somewhere else. The distance between the two places is the conversation.
Setting up
- Place. A table at home after dinner works well. Put the phones in another room, unless you’re using one for the online table.
- The deck. 50 double-sided cards. One side holds an idea, the other an everyday thing. The game is made for 2–6 players, so two is a full game.
- The die. You fold it from a card into a six-sided prism and roll it like a pencil. Its faces are six plain words: MEMORIES · BODY · PEOPLE · VALUES · CHILDHOOD · FUTURE. The only instruction is “Look at the word from that side.”
- No deck. Open the online table on a phone between you. It draws, flips and rolls.
Agree on passing first
The rules open with “Before you start, agree together how passing works.” With a partner, this agreement matters as much as in a group. Agree that either of you can pass without a reason, or turn the card to its other side. A pass on date night means only that. Come back to it later only if the person who passed brings it up.
One round
- Whoever suggested the game goes first.
- Draw a card. Choose a side: the idea or the thing.
- Roll the die.
- Look at the word from that side. Say as much or as little as feels right.
- The others ask what they’re curious about, gently, without judging.
- Pass the die to the left.
With two players, “the others” is your partner, and “to the left” means across the table.
Trust has Window on its other side. Pick the idea when you want to talk about the two of you. Pick the thing when you want a story first: a view from a childhood room, a window you waited by. Stories about things often end up at the idea anyway.
The follow-up questions
The rule card gives three questions. They’re the only questions this date night needs, and they work for every word in the deck:
What did that feel like? Who else was there? Has it always meant that to you?
The first moves a story toward a feeling. The second brings in people from before you met. The third asks how a word has changed over time. In a long relationship, the third is often where you hear something new.
Follow-ups also change how the speaker feels about the listener. In a study by Huang and colleagues, people who asked more questions were better liked by their partners. The rate of follow-up questions explained much of the effect, including in speed-dating conversations (Huang et al. 2017).
Let your partner finish. Ask one follow-up. Then wait. “A short answer is a full answer. You can always ask for more.”
Pacing
“Play for as long as it feels good.” Some evenings, three cards fill an hour. Some evenings, one card does. The game’s own line covers it: “Sometimes one word is enough.”
Mix light and heavy words. If the last card was hard, take a lighter one next, or turn to the thing side.
Money sits on the back of Backpack. Couples handle money every day and rarely look at the word itself. What counts as “broke” or “enough” can differ between two people who share an account. Saying it out loud on a calm evening is easier than finding out during a hard month.
Heavy cards
Some words land close to home when the other player is your partner.
Jealousy has Kitchen table on its other side. The idea side works for siblings, friends and partners, so you can answer about a brother or an old friend before you answer about the two of you. You can also choose the kitchen table, or pass.
If a card opens a real disagreement, put it aside and agree when you’ll talk about it. The game can wait for that conversation. Keep the rule from the table card in mind: “Every view is welcome, especially one that differs from yours.”
The last round
End the evening the way every game of Thesis ends. “When the group is ready to stop, finish with one last round: each player names one thing they discovered about someone at the table today.”
With two players, “someone at the table” is your partner. After years together, naming one thing you learned about them tonight is the point of the whole evening.
See the rules and the box. The cards above have their own pages: Trust, Money and Jealousy. For more on playing as a couple, see Thesis for couples. The research behind the deck explains where the words came from. For a table of colleagues, see team building card games for work.