Issue #115: The problem with too many choices

No one needs 87,000 coffee options.

It was the pistachio tiramisu matcha latte that did it. A phrase I would have attributed to a random word generator, if not for the concrete fact of the pavement sign standing before me.

‘I have measured out my life in coffee spoons,’ lamented T.S Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock, of the daily monotonies that underpinned his existence. Not that it’s a competition but, over a century on, life as a modern urbanite feels bleaker still: I can’t even work out which coffee I want in the first place.

On its website, Starbucks boasts 87,000 different drink combinations. While Starbucks pioneered this mania, its disciples – Blank Street, Black Sheep Coffee et al – are likely to have even more options, thanks to their endless capacity for creative bastardisation (rumour has it, babe, you’re no one unless you’re sipping a cherry cold brew latte this spring).

Pray, must we?

It isn’t just coffee. Take, for instance, the rise and rise of trademarked grapes. It seems like only yesterday we were choosing between white, red, or white and red. Now, a trip to your local M&S Food involves an existential dilemma while you weigh up speciality varieties including Tutti Frutti®, Cotton Candy®, Muscat® and Sable Seedless® (call me a pleb, but I still prefer white).

Meanwhile, your days slip away from you, measured out in the hours you spend contemplating an item on Vinted, deciding where to book for dinner on Friday night, and/or swiping your capacity for love away on a dating app.

Why face one massive decision, when there are so many tiny, low-stakes ones to busy yourself with? Millions of them, in fact: micro-decisions, concerning what to eat, drink, listen to, wear, etc – almost as if they’ve popped up to relieve you of the pressure to make the big ones. And because those choices are being marketed to you as important and urgent – by Starbucks, or Sweaty Betty, or Spotify – you may well get to them sooner. Sure, you haven’t decided whether or not you want kids – yet your brain latches on to that ‘What podcast shall I listen to?’ dilemma like a Golden Retriever might a manky tennis ball, all the while letting the truly consequential stuff fall to the wayside.

Satan’s matcha.

Somewhere deep down, you know it’s all a distraction tactic. You fear making the wrong decisions, and then having to live with the consequences. Even microcosmically, this is no small matter: you’re in real danger of buying a £4.70 beverage so hideous it makes you weep a little with each premium sip. How might that extrapolate out to marrying the wrong person, buying the wrong flat, leaving the right job? Better stick with the small decisions, you tell yourself –

The trouble is, that’s the more dangerous option.