There are three judgments I will make with conviction and confidence that I am right, and you won’t ever be able to change my mind:
1. Listening to music selected by today’s teenagers makes me feel like I’m being drugged for surgery.
2. Nothing brings a group of nosy yentas together like something that is none of their business.
3. A group of friends trying to decide where to dine is more difficult than licking your own elbow.
I’ve discussed this before, and I’ll discuss this again because this problem doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. It’s like a Rubik’s Cube. A few people can solve it, some at lightning speed, while most of us try and try but can’t figure it out.
And just like another attempt at the Rubik’s Cube, we repeatedly attempt to make plans with our friends, knowing the decision-making process is like a hamster on a wheel going around in circles until we are exhausted. This likely happens to you, too. We all know it’s because our friends are nice and probably actually don’t care where we go. We just want everyone to be happy. And we just want to be together, so the place we gather doesn’t matter.
Look, I understand that people in the world have real problems, and this is not one of them.
Here’s how it goes: One friend starts the text thread asking everyone to meet for lunch. Someone innocently asks, “Where should we go?” Within seconds another text comes through that says, “Anywhere is fine with me.”
No, it’s not, honey, and you know it’s not. The next well-meaning friend names two places, and everyone else replies, “I like both of those.” Not helping. Then … silence. No texts. No one answers because no one wants to choose.
A couple of days later the original organizer tries to rally the group with, “Did we ever decide anything for Saturday?”
We all say, “Either place is fine.” But we each really want one of the places, plus maybe a secret third place that hasn’t been mentioned.
This would be a good time to use that famous phrase “we can do hard things.” I see that phrase all over social media posted by girl-boss types reworking the famous Nike slogan “Just Do It.”
Professional overthinkers can take a simple task and turn it into a spiral of options with offshoot options and myriad reasons why each is bad, good, or not good enough.
Clearly, “we can do hard things” is probably meant for more than being the one in the group who makes the restaurant decision, but sometimes that task is more difficult than doing a 5K. As if I know what I’m talking about, like I’ve ever done a 5K. Or K’s one through four. I don’t know if I’ve ever even done K.
The best solution would be for the person who starts the planning to be the one who chooses the restaurant. After asking the others for a date, the planner announces the location: “For Saturday, we are meeting at Lefty’s Bagels. See you there.” Boom. Done. Bagels, shmear, decision made.
Once we finally decide the restaurant, we have a lovely time being together. We eat our food, have our drinks and then the server has the nerve to suggest dessert. We resume the dance where no one wants to make a decision. We all secretly want dessert, but “only a bite or two.” Do we want dessert? And then, if so, we have to decide which dessert we are going to share.
One of these days, instead of getting one dessert with four forks, I’m just going to get four desserts and one fork.
