Gen Z's fear of the unknown is understandable?

You wake up suddenly, drenched in cold sweat. WhatsApp notifications keep pouring in, relentless. In the group named New Year's Eve 2023, to which you were added almost against your will, there has been ongoing discussion for hours about where to go, what to do, what to buy, what to cook, or what to order. Who's coming? What are we eating? What are we drinking? It's your worst nightmare because you can't decide, nor do you want to read through those brisk 234 backlog messages from people who, on the contrary, have very clear ideas. This situation, clearly dramatized and made even more extreme by the specter of New Year's Eve looming over our heads since November, happens practically every week or whenever the decision-making involves what to eat and where, causing a real condition of anxiety and discomfort in people who find it difficult to decide. And there are quite a few.

What is Menu Anxiety, and What Lies Beneath

Confessions from very young social media users abound, half serious and half joking, revealing how every time they have to go out for a drink or a meal, they pre-check the menu of the chosen venue, prices, the route to take on public transport, and available parking. They don't want surprises; they want to know in advance how much they'll spend and what they'll eat because they feel embarrassed ordering in front of a waiter and need to practice privately in their own room, because they want to bring the right amount of money: in short, because they can't relax. On one hand, it's almost understandable. Personally, I sometimes hate ordering, especially if I'm with people I know little or in a place that makes me feel uncomfortable. I feel silly saying out loud the funny, difficult, or obscure names of dishes; I'm afraid the person taking the order will correct me or not understand. If we dig a little deeper, though, we find in what has been promptly defined as menu anxiety and almost pathologized - attributed to Gen Z as a generation more prone to isolation and relational anxiety and wielded as a stick to show how these young people are incapable - a great number of nuances, all useful to understand something about the next generation of adults and perhaps even the older ones.

The Numbers Behind Menu Anxiety

According to a survey conducted by the British restaurant chain Prezzo on about 2000 people, 86% of individuals aged 18 to 24 feel anxious when it comes to ordering. 34% of them even ask someone at the table to do it for them. It's not an exclusive issue of Gen Z: among all the people who responded to the survey, a whopping 67% feel the same anxiety, although the numbers decrease as age increases. For Gen X and baby boomers (44-77), the percentage hovers around 15%. A similar survey commissioned by Avocado Green Mattress through OnePoll confirms the trend: 3 in 10 Americans experience menu anxiety. In short, it's a problem that affects the younger generation, but not exclusively.

The Deep Causes of "Superficial" Anxiety

If we want to analyze it seriously, in fact, we find in menu anxiety as it is often explained on social media by those directly involved at least three main motivations or fears: the fear of the unknown, of facing a menu full of dishes we don't know; the inability to decide quickly; and the inability to relate to another human being in a spontaneous and non-"rehearsed" manner, to handle the embarrassment of a less-than-ideal interaction in front of other people. Symptoms, more than causes, of a much bigger problem, to be addressed collectively. If, finally, we add to these numbers and considerations those related to the level of general anxiety, perception of danger, financial and job concerns, the long-term effects of the pandemic, eco-anxiety, and so on, the portrait we receive back is that of a frightened generation (or a couple of generations, millennials are not much better off). Asking why, what the causes are, and what could be the ways to help them would be infinitely more constructive than labeling them as incapable big babies.

Menu Anxiety: Are There Solutions?

If we are the ones suffering from this form of anxiety, we might try to understand why. Do we rarely go out to eat, and trying new things makes us nervous? Are we surrounded by people who make us feel stupid or demand a constant performance that we can't guarantee? Are we too insecure? Menu anxiety, here, is not our main enemy but a signal that something is wrong. Talking about it with friends, family, and even a therapist could be the right path to overcome all our fears, one at a time, from the smallest to the largest.