The person waiting for a decision may be unable to make several others.

A pending decision is rarely isolated. Someone waiting to hear about a job, a house, a diagnosis or a date cannot book the holiday, accept the other offer, or plan past the point where the answer lands, so one open question quietly freezes a whole area of their life. From outside, the wait looks like a single item. From inside, it is a stack.

If a decision is yours to make, give the answer as soon as it is real, and give an honest date when it is not yet. Say what you can rule out even if you cannot yet rule anything in.