Blogtrek

Abilene Paradox

Something that has caught my interest recently is the Abilene Paradox. This is the story about a foursome who were taking it easy on a hot Texas afternoon when they got the idea of going to Abilene to eat, and each of them thought the others wanted it so they went along, but actually none of them did! This is a failure of communication. If you ask a woman to dance with you because you think you should and the woman accepts to please you even though she does not want to dance with you, then you are dancing with her to Abilene. If you agree to a suspense date with someone else at week even though you don’t think it can be made, and the other people agree so as not to seem odd even though they don’t think they can make it either, then the deadline will be in Abilene. It is a gross miscommunication. My idea so far has been to avoid dealing with people who take me to Abilene.

I suppose the way to deal with it is to double down with others and tell what you really want regardless. That is hard to do.