Where Should We Eat?: What Dinner Teaches Us About Modern Decision-Making

Everyone’s had that conversation:

“What do you want for dinner?”

“I don’t know, what do you want?”

“Anything’s fine.”

“Okay, how about Thai?”

“Ugh, not in the mood for Thai.”

It’s a minor friction most of us have encountered hundreds of times—two people, trying to make one small decision together. But even something as simple as dinner can reveal a lot about how collaboration breaks down. One person might be picky but unwilling to do the legwork. The other might be flexible but secretly frustrated that the decision always falls on them. One person might be burned out from making too many decisions all day and not know how to say it.

This little moment? It’s not just about food. It’s about expectations, communication, and the invisible labor of decision-making. And now, tech is in the mix too.

We bring Google Maps, Yelp, TikTok recs, and group chats into the decision. Suddenly we’re filtering, scrolling, and scanning—adding more tools, not more clarity. It’s easy to think they’re helping. But sometimes, they just complicate things further.

Now imagine you’re abroad. You pull out your favorite app—only to realize it’s giving you filtered lists based on tourist data. The places locals actually love? Not even on your radar. The algorithm is trying to help, but it’s trained on the wrong context. Instead of guidance, you get noise. Instead of a decision, you get stuck.

And that’s just dinner.

This Isn’t Just a Food Story

These same patterns are playing out in more impactful parts of our lives:

• Who we date and how we connect

• Who we hire and how we lead

• Which clients we work with—and how we find them

• What goals we set and how we define success

We’re not making decisions alone. We’re collaborating—with people and with information systems. Sometimes that works beautifully. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, it’s shaping our lives.

This is what I help people understand and redesign at Remake The Rules: how to notice what’s shaping their decisions—and how to create systems and practices that actually serve them.

Why It’s So Exhausting

Here’s the deeper problem: We don’t just do this once in a while. We do it all the time. And the more tools we add, the more decisions we make—big and small—the more tired we get. We lose energy, clarity, and momentum right when we need it most.

That’s how decision fatigue sneaks in.

By the time we get to the life-changing decisions—the ones about partnership, purpose, or our next big move—we’re already worn out from choosing dinner, comparing software, managing texts, and trying to “stay informed.” We’re tapped.

So what do we do?

Better Questions, Better Systems

We pause. We ask better questions:

• Is this tool actually helping me?

• Am I clear on what I want?

• What would make this process less exhausting?

The real power of technology isn’t in replacing our judgment. It’s in supporting it. But that only works if we know what kind of support we need—and how to tell when it’s gone off track.

When we get that right, everything shifts. Our energy returns. Our relationships deepen. Our decisions start to feel less like friction and more like flow.

Because it’s not just about what we’re choosing—it’s about how we’re choosing. And who we’re choosing with.

Let’s make sure that collaboration actually works.

→ Curious how this work could support you or your team directly? Schedule a free discovery call to explore how we can collaborate.