Five of you and nobody agrees: pick where to go out in two minutes

Saturday, 4 pm. Someone writes in the group chat: “Where are we going tonight?” Then: “I’m in.” “Depends where.” “Not too far.” “Not too expensive.” “You decide, I’ll follow.” At 9 pm there are forty messages, zero places, and everyone eats at home.

It is not that your friends are difficult. The question is the problem.

Why it gets stuck

• Too much choice is tiring. Faced with a thousand options, the brain would rather choose nothing. An open question, “where shall we go?”, opens a thousand.
• Nobody wants the blame. If the place is bad, it is the fault of whoever suggested it. So everyone waits for someone else to commit.
• The loudest wins. Without a rule, it is not the best idea that wins: it is the one repeated the loudest.

The two-minute method

1. One person suggests, instead of asking. Replace “where shall we go?” with “Saturday, 7 pm, around Bastos: grilled fish or chicken?”. A suggestion can be adjusted; an empty question gets lost.
2. Budget first. Give one figure per person: “5,000 each”. Everyone knows straight away whether they are in.
3. Three options, no more. Beyond that, you are back to choice fatigue. Two is even better.
4. A vote, with a deadline. “Vote before 6 pm. After that, I choose.” Whoever does not vote accepts the others’ choice.
5. The middle, not next to whoever spoke first. Pick an area roughly the same distance from everyone.

NiceThings does it for you

Two tools are made for exactly this.

• “Where shall we meet?” Save places to your favourites (the heart, on each page), pick 2 to 4, and send the link to the group. Everyone votes with one tap, without creating an account, and the bars move live.
• The search that understands sentences. Just type “5 friends, 5000, chill”: NiceThings understands the number of people, the budget and the mood, and suggests places that fit.

Search in Yaoundé · My favourites, to start a vote

The great Saturday-night duels

To practise, three duels. Answer in the comments with 1 or 2 for each: we will see which side wins.

Duel 1: Team chicken (1) or Team grilled fish (2)?

Chicken gets everyone to agree. Grilled fish, with its pepper and its plantains, makes the best evenings. And then there are those who swear only by soya: we can already hear them in the comments.

And Team soya?

For Team chicken

Chicken Dex

Chicken · simbock

Hausa Chicken

5.0(1)

Cameroonian · Rond point express

2,500–5,000 FCFA

La Force du Poulet

Chicken · Nlongkak

Rotisserie Alino

Chicken · Bastos

Duel 2: the terrace (1) or the air-conditioned room (2)?

The terrace for the atmosphere and the cool of the evening; the air conditioning for when it is muggy and you want to hear each other talk.

Duel 3: the spot in your area (1) or the place on the other side of town (2)?

The spot in your area means no taxi and the certainty that everyone comes. The other side of town means discovery… and the risk that two people cancel at the last minute.

Your turn

• Your three answers in the comments: for example “2, 1, 1”.
• In your group, who always says “you decide, I’ll follow”? No names, just an emoji 😅
• Send this article to the group before Saturday. You know which one.

The places come from the NiceThings catalogue; the ones with a tick have been checked by the team. Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Mviena (opening photo, CC BY-SA 4.0) and BACHELOR45 (CC BY-SA 4.0).