I remember a while back, I read something online about how to deal with the inevitable question of "what shall we have for dinner tonight?" It doesn't matter how picky or freewheeling two people are with their diets, you still have to make a decision. If you're super picky, your partner has to find an option that will suit your tastes. If you'll eat anything, you have to whittle the list down to just one from your wide range of options. Either way, it can be a bit of an adventure trying to find that one good option.
Well, this particular suggestion was what I shall dub the Five-Three-One Method. One partner lays out five options from which to choose, the other narrows those five choices down to three, and then the original person selects the final option from the narrowed list. Everyone is involved in the selection making process, and you definitively assert that you are okay with the options that you have selected. Better yet, it avoids having to choose from every single option available to you. All you have to do is narrow it down.
The reason I mention this is that the Mild Wife and I will occasionally sit down to watch some Netflix together (crocheting occasionally makes an appearance during this process). However, that then leaves the decision of what to watch. Much the same way that the food choice can be daunting, this, too, can turn into a quagmire. Does either of us feel like something light-hearted at the moment? What if one of us feels like a documentary but the other wants to watch a drama? You can see the potential pitfalls.
So, we've adopted a variation of the Five-Three-One Method. For starters, we chopped off the "Five." Instead, we just do Three-One. However, the catch is that we don't actually give the title, we give a short, one-to-three word phrase that sums up the movie or show. For example, for "Doctor Zhivago," I described it as "classic." I've never seen it, but given that I've heard it referenced before, I know it's more or less withstood the test of time (the Rotten Tomatoes rating seems to bear this out). The Mild Wife then had to choose between "classic" and two other similarly mysterious descriptions.
Frankly, it's made the process way more fun. If I'm in charge of picking the initial three, I enjoy finding cryptic, yet accurate, descriptions for the choices I am offering. On the other end, the Mild Wife would pick something and still have an air of surprise when she realizes what she has picked.
The best part has been that we've ended up watching things that neither of us would have ever considered had we simply asked each other what to watch. It's been all sorts of fun. So, should you ever get stuck trying to decide what to watch, I have a proposal for you.
Well, this particular suggestion was what I shall dub the Five-Three-One Method. One partner lays out five options from which to choose, the other narrows those five choices down to three, and then the original person selects the final option from the narrowed list. Everyone is involved in the selection making process, and you definitively assert that you are okay with the options that you have selected. Better yet, it avoids having to choose from every single option available to you. All you have to do is narrow it down.
The reason I mention this is that the Mild Wife and I will occasionally sit down to watch some Netflix together (crocheting occasionally makes an appearance during this process). However, that then leaves the decision of what to watch. Much the same way that the food choice can be daunting, this, too, can turn into a quagmire. Does either of us feel like something light-hearted at the moment? What if one of us feels like a documentary but the other wants to watch a drama? You can see the potential pitfalls.
So, we've adopted a variation of the Five-Three-One Method. For starters, we chopped off the "Five." Instead, we just do Three-One. However, the catch is that we don't actually give the title, we give a short, one-to-three word phrase that sums up the movie or show. For example, for "Doctor Zhivago," I described it as "classic." I've never seen it, but given that I've heard it referenced before, I know it's more or less withstood the test of time (the Rotten Tomatoes rating seems to bear this out). The Mild Wife then had to choose between "classic" and two other similarly mysterious descriptions.
Frankly, it's made the process way more fun. If I'm in charge of picking the initial three, I enjoy finding cryptic, yet accurate, descriptions for the choices I am offering. On the other end, the Mild Wife would pick something and still have an air of surprise when she realizes what she has picked.
The best part has been that we've ended up watching things that neither of us would have ever considered had we simply asked each other what to watch. It's been all sorts of fun. So, should you ever get stuck trying to decide what to watch, I have a proposal for you.
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