Embarrassed or bugged by dinner companions

[bloviatrix]

I have so many stories, I don't know where to start.

The spouse of one of my close friends is completely lacking in social graces. Whenever they attend events, such as black-tie dinners or weddings, he always brings a magazine with him to read. Secondly, he refuses to dress for these occassions. I can understand not wearing a tux, but you should at least wear a dark suit and a clean, pressed shirt . Then, there are his table manners. Some years ago we had them over on Rosh Hashanna. I cooked an elaborate meal, and as I began to serve he made a crack that he doesn't eat anything that's healthy. This meant he bypassed the salad course and the appetizer. For the main course, I made a chicken dish. After helping himself to some chicken, he proceeded to start eating, right away -- not waiting for the other dishes to come out, or for other people to finish serving themselves --with his fingers. Once he finished eating, he got up from the table, walked over to the couch and began reading a newspaper.

Then, there's my B-I-L, who felt a need to report to my in-laws that I "ordered an expensive dish and didn't clean my plate. And then had the nerve to order dessert" I still can't figure out why it bothered him, particularly since he wasn't paying the bill.

[Callipygos]

Okay, jumping on the "food quirks in SO's" tangent for a moment before it segues into a slightly embarrassing moment in a restaurant -- albeit embarassing for different reasons.

One person I dated VERY briefly had the most oddball food quirk I've ever encountered -- he would only eat meat if it did not look like it was an animal part. For instance, he would eat a Chicken McNugget, but not roast turkey. He'd eat meatloaf or hamburger, but not steak. Sausage yes, pork chops no. ...Just an odd one.

Then these days, I'm seeing someone who drinks condiments. Seriously. He will occasionally take bottles of soy sauce or salad dressing or what-not from the fridge and take a little taste. Just -- because.

And now for an embarrassing moment -- the aforementioned gentleman and I were at dinner once, and were enjoying a rather...er...suggestive and racy conversation. And were rather self-absorbed in the conversation. Which is why we did not notice until it was too late that the waitress had arrived with our entrees at the very same second as the word "boobies" was leaving his mouth.

Heh -- I'm also told about something I apparently did when I was twelve. I was out with my extended family for dinner, and my cousin, who was then only two, was having a bit of a tantrum. My aunt was trying her damndest to calm her down, but after about ten minutes of my cousin screaming, and nasty looks from other people, my aunt gave up and left with her for the parking lot to settle her down. As they left, I apparently turned to my parents and said, "okay, everything *I* did when I was two? I am SO SORRY."

[NeroW]

Then these days, I'm seeing someone who drinks condiments.  Seriously.  He will occasionally take bottles of soy sauce or salad dressing or what-not from the fridge and take a little taste.  Just -- because. 

Tell him to come over to my house and empty my fridge door of all the Weird Shit that's in there.

Seriously, I have a friend who eats Condiment Sandwiches.

Ketchup and white bread is his favorite. He ate 4 of them, once, while we froze with our beers held halfway to our open mouths, staring in horror.

[tryska]

thise drives me nuts:

i've got this friend that simply cannot for the life of her, order something off a menu and let ti come as it is supposed to be.

it doesn't matter if it's a fast food drive thru, takeout chinese or a real lvie sit-down restaurant. and it's not because of allergies - it's cuz she jsut wants it her way or soemthing. invariably the complicated orders get messed up, and then she sends it back. i constantly fear foreign substances in my meal when dining with her.

another pet peeve - and thoroughly embarrassign to me is dining with someone who has no table manners - talks with their mouth full, holds a utensil like a truckdriver, chews with their mouth open, burps at the table, grabs stuff off of your plate, etc, etc - and it's a nice restaurant in particular, AND it's a female.

Edited August 12, 2003 by tryska (log)

[Callipygos]

i've got this friend that simply cannot for the life of her, order something off a menu and let ti come as it is supposed to be.

it doesn't matter if it's a fast food drive thru, takeout chinese or a real lvie sit-down restaurant.  and it's not because of allergies - it's cuz she jsut wants it her way or soemthing.  invariably the complicated orders get messed up, and then she sends it back.

Well, ONE advantage to doing this in a fast-food restaurant, is that this almost guarantees that your burger is made precisely then as opposed to having been something that was made some time ago and just kept under a heat lamp.

Spend six months in the trenches in high school and you learn things.

[tryska]

Spend six months in the trenches in high school and you learn things.

hee hee - i have - which is why this practice scares the bejeesus out of me.

Edited August 12, 2003 by tryska (log)

[sarah_mc21]

My Aunt who orders white wine on the rocks. If the server/bartender asks which white wine she'd like. Whatever is the cheapest is her reply.

[FoodMan]

The "regular folks" I mentioned probably were almost as clueless but they were polite enough to play along. Not him -- he wasn't about to be intimidated into thinking that this must be the "right" way to eat and the way he was used to was wrong.

Since the "regular folks" were polite he to me just seems impolite and inconsiderate. The way he behaved IS WRONG and no one was trying to intimidate him. There is no excuse for his behavior.

FM

[britcook]

My Aunt who orders white wine on the rocks.  If the server/bartender asks which white wine she'd like.  Whatever is the cheapest is her reply.

She wants something cold, reasonably long and not too alcoholic, she has no taste and doesn't understand wine so she orders the cheapest wine wine on the rocks. 'Sup with that? At least it has no pretension.

[wawairis]

Cell phones are banned in most Japanese restaurants, even the Denny's type ones!

They are also banned in trains and there are quite heavy fines if one is caught talking and driving!

Just as it should be. They're so damned annoying! I just hate to see a bunch of yuppie wankers come into a restaurant, sit down, and whip out their cell phones to place on the table. BFD! Like a cell phone is going to make them Mr. Irresistable!

[malarkey]

Later, when the waitress was handing out the menus and the women on either side of him had both received them, he yelled, "Excuse me, you skipped me!!" and grabbed a menu out of the waitress's hands.  She was on the verge of tears by this point and mumbled something about the ladies being served first, which he didn't hear, and continued to scowl like a child, thinking that he was getting lousy service.

(snip)

I've said it before & I'll say it again -- better to be a rube than a poser.

hmm I'm not so sure. I think both are equally bad. This guys behavior was atrocious. At this point I would have told him myself "Ladies are given menus FIRST" rather than let the waitress suffer. just to let him know what a cad he was being.

its one thing to be ignorant, its quite another to be arrogant and ignorant.

My mom drinks Coors Light and puts ice in it but she does this at home, as she hardly EVER drinks when out at a restaurant (consequence of living rural, you are 30 miles from the nearest restaurant) but she prefers her wines and cocktails on the sweet side ;-) Cold Duck was a regular at our house at Thanksgiving time LOL.

other than that I would say embarassing moments came more with co-workers out to lunch. I've always kind of tried to evolve the cafeteria hamburger/pizza eating crowd to a higher level so I might actually have some decent lunch companions. But wherever I take them, they usually end up smelling the food with a suspicious look on their face and later tell me it was "awful". *sigh* pearls before swine...

[Rachel Perlow]

I just hate to see a bunch of yuppie wankers come into a restaurant, sit down, and whip out their cell phones to place on the table.  BFD!  Like a cell phone is going to make them Mr. Irresistable!

Um, you put your cell phone on the table so that it is handy to grab if it rings. I don't think anyone in this day and age thinks of having a cell phone as a status symbol. Think of it this way, if they're not going to turn it off when they're in the restaurant (which I think they should), then at least they won't let it ring and ring and ring before answering it.

[itch22]

My fiancee's best friend, despite her clumsy nature and tendency to point at whatever (or whom ever) she is referring to, I would just appreciate it if we could get through one public eaten meal where she got all the food (or at least more than half) into her mouth. (When she does miss, and it lands on the table, she'll either pick it up and eat it or put it on her plate and eat it later.)

[goyatofu]

I once threw a wonton party at home, invited people over to make their own, many of them have not even eaten them before. They really enjoyed the whole experience.

A co-worker brought his fiancee with her (whom I've never met) and they arrived late, and when I asked if they had eaten yet, they said no. I proceeded to make some wontons for them.

Imagine my horror when I found the bowl untouched and left on the table at the end of the night. A friend later told me that she asked the fiancee why he didn't eat the wontons, he replied "I don't eat chinese food." I would have been more than happy to whip up something else for him, but wasting the food was so disrespectful!

Why show up at a wonton party when you don't eat chinese food?

[britcook]

Maybe they thought "wonton" party was a spelling mistake?

[Jinmyo]

Maybe they thought "wonton" party was a spelling mistake?

It took me about 50 seconds to get past "spelling mistake for what?" until I finally got it.

[Mark Sommelier]

Maybe they thought "wonton" party was a spelling mistake?

Reminds me of the Chinese restaurant in Rehoboth Beach called "Wonton Desire".

[browniebaker]

One of the most cringe-inducing moments at a restaurant happened when I was in high school and was having dinner out with my parents and two brothers, also high-school-age. Our waitress was a very pretty blonde girl, just my big brother's "type." When the waitress came to our table to ask whether everything was all right, my brother piped up and declared, "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

I don't think anyone said another word during dinner or the drive home.

[zilla369]

A couple of years back i wrote a piece on retrocrush.com about a time 20 years ago when i - through an odd juxtaposition of events - had dinner at a restaurant with Andy Kaufman. It was after one of his wrestling shows and during that time period when he was obliged to wear a neckbrace due to having been "suplexed" by Jerry "The King" Lawler.

At 11 PM on a weeknight in 1983, he wanted upscale vegetarian food. There was only one restaurant we could think of that would offer something suitable at that time of night. He made an ass of himself and embarassed all of us by ranting at the servers and raving at anyone that recognized him: "I am trying to eat dinner, here!"

Other fun stuff happened, too, but not at the restaurant. Yikes.

Edited August 19, 2003 by zilla369 (log)

[NVNVGirl]

OH MY GOD..it makes me cringe to remember this, but I was having a lovely, almost perfect dinner with my ex-bf at the restaurant at Little Palm Island.....it couldn't have been more perfect....except that the service was a tad slow, but it was such a gorgeous place and I was so in love .....I couldn't have cared less, however, my bf was not getting the attention he thought he was worthy of and was in a huff over not getting our dessert by the time the 9 PM ferry went back to Little Torch Key....even tho we could have taken the 10 PM one....everything seemed ok till we got to the hostess stand where he told her (and this is verbatim) "this is the worst fucking service I've ever had"....I felt like I'd been mysteriously transported to some horror flick....we got onto the ferry (where all the other passengers had heard his comment and one of them (a smart ass, but I thought he was pretty funny) said "so, how did you like your dinner?".....and he proceeded to tell them (verbatim and I'm not kidding)...."What you PEOPLE fail to understand, is that I spend more money entertaining people in restaurants in a year than you MAKE"....OMG...I was horrified and wanted to climb into a hole and pull the earth over my head.....

But then it got even better....we were at the Tides in South Beach having cocktails on the front patio and he asked the waiter for a margarita on the rocks....to make a long ugly story short, he didnt' like his margarita and proceeded to tell the waiter that he KNEW that it was the wrong drink and he must have thought he was some dumb tourist and didn't know any better and he wasn't going to take that kind of treatment from any FAGGOT!

Double OMG....I told him then and there...this is it buddy...you don't treat people who are trying to help you that way and I was outta there THAT NIGHT. Gosh, guess I shoulda known when he was so awful to the Little Palm people.

And then I'm sure almost everyone has a story about a child at a restaurant....my little 3 yr old nephew I took to a local place in Yountville where I know everyone at the restaurant concerned...I'm just going to get something to go and sit down to have a glass of wine while I wait....for SOME reason, he chooses that time to ask me, in front of the bartender and several other lucky diners, "Aunt Seana, how come Mommy has hair on her potty thing?" UGH!....Maybe that's why i don't have kids...... or a boyfriend

[NeroW]

But then it got even better....to make a long ugly story short, he didnt' like his margarita and proceeded to tell the waiter that he KNEW that it was the wrong drink and he must have thought he was some dumb tourist and didn't know any better and he wasn't going to take that kind of treatment from any FAGGOT!

Whoa.

I would've stood up, reached across the table, and punched that dude in his mouth.

[Suzanne F]

NVNV -- How bad was the cleanup from everybody spitting out their drinks?

[wawairis]

I just hate to see a bunch of yuppie wankers come into a restaurant, sit down, and whip out their cell phones to place on the table.  BFD!  Like a cell phone is going to make them Mr. Irresistable!

Um, you put your cell phone on the table so that it is handy to grab if it rings. I don't think anyone in this day and age thinks of having a cell phone as a status symbol. Think of it this way, if they're not going to turn it off when they're in the restaurant (which I think they should), then at least they won't let it ring and ring and ring before answering it.

As far as I'm concerned it shouldn't be on at all. It's so rude to be on the phone while your meal companion gazes into space.

I know there's a lot of circumstances where people need to have their phones on but I still think it's incredibly rude.

I recognize your point about leaving the phone on the table. I've been at dinner where a fellow diner not only left his phone on the table, but refused to answer it. It rang and rang and rang.

[NVNVGirl]

NVNV -- How bad was the cleanup from everybody spitting out their drinks? 

Suzanne, considering that probably about 90% of everyone who was around us was gay, I just felt that it was an incredibly amazingly stupid thing to say aside from his obvious asshole-itis. We coulda been killed! I've tried to make better choices in my life since then, esp when I fly across the country with someone

[mrbigjas]

As far as I'm concerned it shouldn't be on at all.  It's so rude to be on the phone while your meal companion gazes into space.

We were recently at a restaurant here in town where a couple solved that problem pretty effectively. They both had phones with games on them, and they played them throughout the meal. Barely even looked up at each other.