Judging the Judging of Dining Out
Editorial: a lot of mundane life experiences need no editorializing. While every cashier should be mentally judging a person who buys a 25-ounce can of Steel Reserve, an oven mitt and a jar of strawberry jam, that cashier should keep those thoughts to himself.
Someone drinking from sugar packets doesn’t need to be told about his breakfast of champions. Further, the literary snob at the next table doesn’t need to explain Vonnegut’s use of the term[1] nor does the cereal aficionado need to talk about the 2015 PBA League sponsor[2].
The worst unsolicited, unnecessary editorializing in everyday life happens at restaurants. The insatiable desire for everyone to comment on everyone else’s food consumption is almost as revolting as most of the food itself.
Can’t Love Your Meal
Whether you actually enjoy your meal or not, one thing you absolutely should not do is clean your plate. If your waiter returns to the table and your plate lacks the slightest morsel of food, you’re stuck.
“You must’ve really hated it,” says the waiter.
Now you’re trapped. The easiest thing to do is to play into the non-joke joke and muster a “Not at all” amid your feigned guffaw. The honest thing to do, assuming you actually did like it, is to say, seriously, “Actually, I liked it quite a bit,” but then you become the weirdo with no social skills bringing a halt to what could’ve been an innocuous moment.
If you didn’t like the food but devoured it anyway, being honest appears as if you’re playing into the joke, so there’s no reason to consider honesty.
There’s no good option. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and could’ve been avoided if the waiter had abstained from editorializing your behavior.
Can’t Hate Your Meal
If you think you can avoid an awful exchange by simply leaving gobs of food on your plate, you’re wrong.
“Are you still working on it? Do you need a box? Too much for you, sissy?”
You think: No, I’m not working on it. I’m eating it or I’m not and I’m doing so at my pace. I don’t need a box, but if I want one, I’ll politely request one. Yes, it is too much for me and for anyone because you serve way too much food, but I haven’t said that out loud because you don’t need my editorializing any more than I need yours. And yes, I continue to realize the irony of an editorial against editorializing.
You say: “You can take it.”
There’s no other answer. Even if you were still eating or wanted to take the rest home, your entire experience has been ruined and you just want to get out of there. If you detested it, you’ve eaten too much to be believed and there’s no point anyway. The waiter doesn’t care.
Just a Water
Not in the mood for alcohol? Don’t like soda? Weren’t sold by the 17th insert in the menu touting the latest candy-and-cereal-infused-vodka milkshake with a dusting of chow mein and a miniature Corona jammed in upside down?
“I’ll just have water,” you say.
“Just a water?”
Yes, just a water. Why are we relegating water (and often coffee) to a consolation prize? Are people who drink water doing something wrong? Why do water drinkers need to apologize for not requesting something extravagant like a cola or scurvy-fending orange juice?
Safe Supplies, Again
Naturally, we return to Goffman’s notion of safe supplies. Generic small talk. Weather, sports, whether or not a stranger hated his or her food. It’s natural for a waiter—who has one of the most difficult jobs in existence and should be given some slack—to want to interact with his customers and respectable that he wants to be jovial and fun. But telling strangers whether or not they liked their food based on how much of it they ate is neither jovial nor fun. It’s dreadful.
I’ll be at the bar. I’ll just have a brandy crusta.
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