Ask the price

The next three chapters are the method, and this one is the question the book is named for. It takes ten seconds and it goes before the yes.

Before the yes, the number. When the plan arrives, in the chat or at the table or at the school gate, the first thing you do is find out what it costs. Not after "count me in". Before. Once you've said yes the price becomes something you're stuck with, and before you've said it the price is something you're deciding about.

Ask the organiser. "Sounds lovely, roughly what's it likely to come to all in?" That's the sentence. It's warm, it assumes you're interested, and it asks for a number. Organisers almost always know the number, because they've been working it out, and almost always are relieved to be asked, because it means they can say it.

Look it up when you can. Restaurants have menus online. Hotels have prices. Trips have letters with figures in them. Two minutes on your phone gives you the price of most evenings before anyone's had to say it out loud.

Get the all-in figure. Lisbon isn't the flight. It's the flight, the two nights, the boat, the dinner, the outfit, the drinks, the taxi, the present. Ask for, or work out, the whole thing, because the habit lives in the pieces, and a price given in pieces is a price you'll agree to and then discover.

Say the number to yourself. "Four hundred and twenty pounds." "Sixty-eight pounds for a main and a glass." Said plainly, in your head, the number does something that "shall we just split it" is designed to prevent. It becomes a decision.

Then decide. Chapter 22 is about how. For now the point is only that the question turns a yes you didn't make into a yes or no you do, and that's the whole difference between keeping up and choosing.

Expect it to feel rude for a fortnight. Chapter 16 says why it isn't. The feeling passes when you've asked three times and nobody has minded, which is what happens.