Do you dine properly or dine like heathens?
Prior to the pandemic, and hopefully again soon, Elysha and I would often go to dinner with our friends, David and Shera.
They are some of our favorite dinner companions. In fact, David’s friendship is one of the best things Elysha has ever given to me. David was grudgingly dragged to the rock opera that a friend and I wrote and produced years ago, expecting it to be awful.
Rightfully so. I would’ve thought the same. A friend’s husband wrote a rock opera?
Yuck.
Instead, he was impressed.
When Elysha introduced me to David following the show, he told me that he had three notes for me on the show. I rolled my eyes, expecting these notes to be nonsense and drivel. The meaningless chatter of a know-nothing plebeian.
Instead, they were insightful and brilliant.
Turns out that in addition to being an attorney, David is a writer.
Standing on the edge of the stage that night, talking about the show, David and I became fast friends.
In addition to being thoroughly enjoyable dinner companions, we are also well matched in terms of our attitudes towards ordering and consuming food at a restaurant.
There are three ways in which you can dine with your spouse and/or friends at a restaurant.
- When ordering and consuming your food, you can operate independently of everyone at the table, ordering your meal absent any cooperation or collaboration from your fellow diners and consuming your meal entirely on your own.
- You can order independently of everyone at the table, but when your food arrives, you can agree to offering a taste of your meal to fellow diners, often in exchange for a reciprocal taste.
- You can also order in concert with fellow diners, agreeing to collaborate on your choices in order to split the meals into parts upon arrival, thus affording you the opportunity to try more than one entree at a single sitting.
Shera and I adhere strongly to the first means of dining. If given our choice, we would order our meal regardless of what our spouses or table mates are ordering and eat our food absent the intrusion of other people’s forks and spoons.
We are, in a word, civilized.
I’m also never interested in trying someone else’s food because of the danger of regret. If I order the steak but take a bite of Elysha’s chicken and discover I like it much better, I must now spend the rest of the meal eyeing Elysha’s entree with remorse.
No thank you.
I ordered my food. I eat my food. I am not afraid of commitment.
If give their choice, Elysha and David would very much like to collaborate on the menu choices with the intent of splitting and sharing entrees upon their arrival. They are not opposed to asking for a bite of something on your plate even as their fork is already descending upon your food, as if the request is a meaningless formality.
In fact, I had to establish a rule with my beloved that I should at least be allowed to take the first bite of my meal before she plunges her fork into it and scoops out a portion for herself.
In this way, Elysha and I are perfectly matched with Shera and David. Elysha and David are more than welcome to enjoy their unholy orgy of food swapping while Shera and I eat our meals undisturbed.
Even when Shera and I buckle under the pressure of inane social norms and allow others to taste our food, we can at least silently support each other in our reasonable and orderly means of dining as mayhem and madness surround us.
When trapped in a world of heathens and barbarians, it’s nice to be able to look across the table and know that there are still a few rationale, reasonable people in the world, trying to hold the line against chaos and lunacy.
I can’t wait to enjoy another meal with them.
