I'll Eat Wherever

It might be a little premature to say this, but after more than a month of weekly posts, I wanted to note that one of my fears (that I won’t have enough to write about) has been demolished. On the contrary, I have too much to write about. (What can I say? I just have so many interesting thoughts.) I have a list of about twenty ideas for topics, but every week when I pick a topic to write about, I feel like I don’t have enough time to write all I want to (or figure out what I think) about each topic in that week.

This week, that is especially true. I forgot I’ll be busy later in the week and won’t be able to post on Friday, so in the spirit of posted weekly by Friday, I guess I’ll post today. But it’ll have to be short and unedited.

When a group of people is trying to decide what restaurant to go to, there’s a certain type of person who refuses to contribute to the decision-making process and keeps saying “I’m fine with whatever.” There are two types of people who resort to this dreadful tactic. The first will say “I’m fine with whatever” in a tone that actually says, “I would rather eat sand with glass shards than that restaurant you just mentioned, but I would prefer to sit in the corner feeling sorry for myself and poking at my pad thai than assert myself the tiny bit it would take to state my preferences.” To deal with this person, I usually take them at their word, and try to find a restaurant with the least accessible food in hopes that it will teach them a lesson about what happens when you don’t assert yourself.

The other type is far more insidious. Although the script is the same, this person is actually fine (even happy perhaps!) with anything, but they don’t want to navigate the delicate decision process and use this line to extricate themselves and foist it on others. I confess I used to be this type of person until my eyes were opened.

The story both these types of people tell themselves is that they are being selfless. They are giving up their vote, so that someone else can eat where they want. This does work great if they are friends with someone who loves to pick out restaurants, but to the other 95% of the population [citation needed], this comes across as selfISHness. Imagine you were making this decision with a clone of yourself, and you both kept saying you were fine with whatever. Eventually the hungrier of you would give in and pick a restaurant and probably still feel a little bad about it. And as I’ve always said, “If you wouldn’t do it to a clone of yourself, don’t do it to your friend.” I’m not sure this part of the argument is clear enough. It can be more annoying to say you’re fine with whatever than to just pick a restaurant. So if you’re truly trying to avoid being annoying, sometimes you should just say what you’d like to eat.

But what is an unassertive person to do? I know even though that airtight argument convinced you, the fear of imposing your own preferences on others may still be horrifying. Here are some tips that I use.

If you’re making plans ahead of time, you can offer to pick the restaurant. If you’re dealing with someone who likes to be the one to pick, they may stop you there. Otherwise, after you offer you have more leverage to ask questions like, “Is there a place you’ve been wanting to try?” “Are you feeling a particular type of cuisine?” “Is there anything you won’t eat?” In my experience, people are more likely to answer these honestly if they know you’re not going to force them to suggest names of restaurants.

Another great option is to pick three places and ask the other person to choose between them. It is much easier to pick your favorite of three options than to pick between all the restaurants in an area. It should go without saying, these should all be restaurants that you would be happy eating at. If you’re a great friend, you can make one of the restaurants your top choice, one something you think they would like, and one sort of middle ground. It’s also good practice to diversify in terms of cuisine if you didn’t already ask about their preferences there.

One difficult option is to say when you’re not fine with a suggestion. If your friends trust you to veto restaurants that you don’t like, then they’re more likely to take your word for it when you say you would like to eat wherever they suggest. On the flip side, if you like their suggestion, express that in some way more positive than saying it’s fine. Saying something like, “That sounds good! I haven’t heard of that place.” or “Oh yeah! I’ve been meaning to try that place.” Makes it sound like the collective utility of the group has been inreased by their decision. (How many times should I say that I don’t endorse lying or manipulation. Don’t do this unless it actually reflects your position.)

Even if, after all this, they’re giving you nothing helpful, these steps make it less painful to accept you’ve done your due diligence, take them at their word, and go to your top choice. In the iterated version of this dilemma, you can use that decision to say, “Oh I picked last time. Why don’t you choose this time?” I would never endorse manipulation, but you can also try lines like, “I’m really busy this week, could you pick.” If you make plans nearer to their place, you could use the excuse that they know the area better.

If all that fails, maybe it’s time to reconsider your friendship, but that’s beyond the scope of this post.