The Group Chat That Can't Pick a Restaurant
The group chat has said "food?" for forty minutes, and nobody has named a place. Someone types "idk." Someone else types "I'm good with anything." One person drops the name of a place nobody else has heard of, and everyone goes quiet on it. Nobody has eaten yet, and the call has landed on the same person again. If the place turns out to be bad, that is their fault too.
If that is your group, here is a way to end it that needs no app, no download, and no sign-up.
A way to stop it, no product needed
This works with the group chat you already have.
- One person names two to eight real places. Actual names, picked before anyone types "idk."
- Set a hard deadline. Fifteen minutes from the moment the list goes out. Anyone who has not answered by then is counted as fine with anything.
- Give everyone one veto. Each person can rule out one place, with no explanation needed. Not a ranking, not a debate, just one no.
- Settle a tie the same way every time. Agree on the rule once, such as a coin flip or whoever's turn it is to choose, and do not reargue it in the moment.
Do those four things in the chat and the forty minutes of "idk" has somewhere to go: a list, a deadline, and a way out of a tie.
This is what wawe does with one link
wawe is a free website that runs those same four steps.
Start a vote and name the two to eight places you are choosing between, or let wawe list nearby places from open map data if nobody has ideas yet. Set how long the vote stays open, so the deadline is real. Paste the one link into the group chat. Anyone can open it in the browser they already use and vote, with no app to download and no account to make. Each person can use a veto to rule out a place they do not want. When time is up, wawe reveals the winner. If there is a tie, wawe settles it with a spin on screen instead of another round of messages.
One link ends the loop: pick the places, set 15 minutes, paste the link in the chat, get a winner.
Start a vote at https://www.whereareweeating.app/?ch=blog-fortyminutes, then screenshot the winner card and drop it back in the chat.