Table conversation at restaurantsWe were talking a

[jaybee]

This evening I was telling our table-mates a story about an acquaintance who asked that his deceased wife's ashes be buried in our rose garden (don't ask). I said the idea made me uncomfortable, as it would disturb my reverie lying in the hammock, smoking a cigar and sipping piña colada thinking that someone was buried under the roses. What to do? Suddenly a women from a nearby table came over to me, placed her hand on my arm, leaned close and said "I recently lost my sister.  I would appreciate your not talking so loudly about cremation and ashes."  I was chagrined.  Was I talking that loudly?  My table-mates didn't think so. Sort of put a damper on the rest of the dinner conversation. I support no smoking rules in restaurants.  But what about no talking about subjects that offend others?

[Pan]

Sounds like a very uncomfortable situation, Jaybee. Overall, it sounds like it was more uncomfortable for the woman than for you, though. Would you agree with that?

[Tonyfinch]

I love America but when there I know there's one thing you mustn't talk about .........DEATH!!!   It just doesn't exist there and that's it. Americans are all immortal until they die.

[Beachfan]

I don't think the topic is off limits at all.  It depends on your other immediate companions.  In fact, it may be very appropriate.

I'm not sure if the other diner was chiding you or expressing a sincere emotion.  Hopefully, she was politely requesting your help in getting over the loss.  This could have been one of her first times out after the morning period.

She may have had a hard time being focused on her dinner companions and unconciously focused on your conversation.  Or she could have been the testy sort.  It's a shame that it affected your dinner in either case.

In any case, next time, talk about death as much as you like!

[Miss J]

jaybee, the grand appeal of evesdropping is the possibility of overhearing a conversation that you would never take part in, and so glean info about complete strangers. So to your question about whether or not you should be careful about what you talk about it restaurants - don't be silly! That would take all the sport out of it for committed evesdroppers everywhere.

As for your specific example, the woman must have been a pretty confident personality to feel as through she could *touch* you and then ask you to change your conversation to suit her current state of mind. (Or maybe I've just been living in England for too long - I think that's pretty forward behaviour.) Like Beachfan, I hope she was inviting you to emphasis with her rather than chiding you. The former is unorthodox, but the latter is just plain out of order.

Miss J

[Andy Lynes]

The question of whether or not your conversation was above what might usually be deemed an acceptable volume for the type of restaurant you were in can only be answered by the people there on the night. However, at the risk of sounding harsh, I think she should have dealt with it. It's a public space, the topic of conversation per sa was not offensive and it was her personal circumstances that made it upsetting to listen to, of which you had no prior knowledge.

[Tonyfinch]

I'm not sure if the other diner was chiding you or expressing a sincere emotion.  

Why would chiding him NOT be the expression of  a sincere emotion? I think you're making some rather odd distinctions here. Are you saying its OK to ask him to pipe down if she's genuinely upset,but not if she isn't and is just a "testy sort"?

Many people in the West deal with death by NOT talking about it. And they don't want to hear others talking about it either.Death in America is an offensive subject to be talking about in restaurants. She felt offended enough to let Jaybee know and that is her right,whatever her emotional state. Jaybee doesn't have to shut up if he doesn't want to and can politely tell her to mind her own business.

Whether one SHOULD be offended by such a conversation is a totally different discussion but to suggest that one should be free to discuss anything in public is nonsense.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

I would have suggested to the lady in question that she mind her own business. Had she not been recently bereaved I would have reduced that to a simple 'fuck off', but then I've always been sentimental.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I don;t think it has anything to do with whether one is free to discuss anything they want in a public space. Nor is it about being loud because her request was to change the topic not pipe down. The fact of the matter is that there is no correlation between the death of her sister and the death of your friend and placing the burden on you to keep her from remembering her sister's death is a little much. And from a practical standpoint I don't understand why her choice of telling you to button up is a better one than her gritting her teeth and not paying attention? I mean she could have begun her own conversation on a different topic and ignored your conversation. Who ever heard of someone being forced to listen to a conversation? Even if she was there alone, she could blank out on the conversation. It sounds like Jaybee, maybe she just was looking for an excuse to touch you?  

[jaybee]

I'm not sure if the other diner was chiding you or expressing a sincere emotion.  Hopefully, she was politely requesting your help in getting over the loss.  This could have been one of her first times out after the morning period.

I think she was quite sincere, and her manner was not challenging but intimately pleading.  My immediate response was to feel sympathy for her and lower my voce so it couldn't be heard outside of our immediate circle.  Had she been rude or attacked me, I probably would have reacted less sympathetically. It was an unusual event.  I think she was "out of order" and driven by her emotions to intrude on others, when she had no right to.  Her intimacy and physical intrusion in my personal "space" (putting her hands on my arm and her face close to mine) were inappropriate.  She was either very distraught or a bit nuts. But she did put me on the defensive which is rare (for me).

[Tonyfinch]

Blimey Steve. You're a right one to tell people to grit their teeth and not pay attention to a discussion.Would you have done this if people were discussing,say,the benefits of anti-semitism,or of lynching black people?(maybe it would depend on how big they were)

I'm not saying that Jaybee,s conversation is comparable but the point is that something is offensive if someone is offended by it,not when one decides whether they should or shouldn't be offended by it.

In this case Jaybee had a choice to either comply with or ignore the request. One may not always feel comfortable making such choices,but its Jaybee that has to deal with that discomfort and the woman should not be blamed for expressing how she felt.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Tony - I'm sorry I don't agree. When you go out into a public space you are susceptable to the reasonable behavior of others. That's what being in a public space is about. Given all the different choices of ways she could have dealt with it other than involving Jaybee, it sounds to me like she wanted to call attention to herself and her loss and she did so in an inappropriate way.

You know it's hard to tell when a stranger confronts you this way if they are sincere or they are just control freaks. One's reaction has to do with how the stranger comes off. This type of interaction used to happen in restaurants all of the time when smoking was still allowed but on its way out. Somone at the next table would complain about the smoke, even in a smoking area. And the exact same type of interaction that Jaybee had with this woman would occur. Someone would pay a visit to your table and "personalize" the request in order to make you feel bad. It was a strategy calculated to make you uncomforatble enough to behave in a way that was different than the way you were entitled to for no other reason than the person wanted an environment they weren't entitled to.

Considering all of the choices that were available to this person who was unhappy with Jaybee's behavior, including asking the maitre'd to change tables, I don't understand why the problem became Jaybee's problem? People should try and deal with their own problems and not try to publicly impose them on innocent people who have nothing to do with them. Or maybe I should ask my neighbors to refrain from eating kidneys because I think they are disgusting and I can't stand the sight of them and it makes me want to vomit and ruins my meal......

[Andy Lynes]

I once had an anti-war discussion in a Portsmouth pub during the Falklands conflict. I was in all probablilty very pissed and talking nonsense, but whatever it was I said, I was followed outside by a Sailor who had done a tour of service during the conflict and was berated for daring to have the conversation within his hearing at all. I was very lucky not to have had the crap beaten out of me.

But that was a "private" conversation in a public place that was overheard and caused offense, which, if it had taken place in central London may well not have at all. So getting back to jaybee's original question about not talking about subjects which may offend, time and place can play a part in that as well.

I don't think we can draw any conclusions from jaybee's experience, as I think it was as jaybee says "an unusual event" unlikely to be repeated with much regularity. If something similar were to occur, one would have to deal with it as circumstances and inclination dictated.

[tommy]

do unto others. etc...

[Bux]

As well as jaybee tells this story, I think it's one of those situations where you had to be there to understand if her actions were offensive. A lot is going to depend on her tone and manner. There's no question that jaybee was not out of line, assuming his voice was no louder than he describes. It appears that the woman in question understood she was making a special request and asking for a special favor.

It's hard to say what anyone should have done in special situations. Ideally I suppose, you should have expressed your sympathy for her loss, some understanding for her sensitivity (whether or not you thought she was out of line) and returned to your table conversation with a line on the order of "well, let's talk about more pleasant things anyway." Later, when you left the restaurant you might have noted that she was out of line and more than a bit unprepared to be in public and too prepared to place her burden on others, if that was your reaction.

Touching strangers is an interesting subject in and of itself. For one thing there's a definite double standard in our society. We react very differently when a man touches a woman, than when a woman touches a man. I'm all for celebrating the differences between the sexes, but in our society, it's becoming less fair to do that. Nevertheless, I can be charmed of offended when a strange woman touches me.

It was her problem, she made it yours. It's unfair, but the more civilized among us do go out of our way to help the weak who may need consideration or abuse their weakness. Don't overlook the fact that she may have just felt the need for a stranger to do her a favor, or the need to talk to a stranger.

[Tonyfinch]

It was a strategy calculated to make you uncomforatble enough to behave in a way that was different than the way you were entitled to for no other reason than the person wanted an environment they weren't entitled to.

No-one is "entitled" to the environment they want anymore than anyone else. People have a perfect right to TRY to change the environment to suit themselves. Whether they actually end up GETTING the environment they want will ultimately depend on whether the critical mass will accept the change.

20 years ago non-smoking areas in restaurants were unheard of.Even in Europe today the majority of restaurants don't have them, but they are slowly becoming more commonplace and will surely be widespread in another 20 years because less and less people are smoking and want a less smoky environment.

I have a problem with cats and dogs in restaurants.I have complained in restaurants in France only to be answered with a Gallic shrug and a look that tells me where I can go if I want to. Fair enough. I have a right to complain and they have a right to tell me to get lost. I have made my point and if enough people feel the same the point will eventually be taken.

I would posit that Death is a subject that woud offend a fair few people in American restaurants. If you're talking about it,especially in a jocular way as evidenced by Jaybee's opening post, I think you should be aware that some people may be upset by it. This emphatically does not mean you shouldn't talk about it,but to express surprise and irritation when someone IS upset and says so strikes me as wanting to have your environment cake and eat it too

[macrosan]

I just have to recount my experience when SteveP, Cabrales and I had dinner at La Trompette some weeks ago.

Steve had us moved from a corner table to a better one right in the middle of the restaurant. During the course of an excellent evening, the table conversation moved on to the political situation in Israel, and touching on the ethics behind suicide bombing. Steve was expressing, mainly to Cabrales, his very firmly held views, when I suddenly became aware that a number of people at the tables round us had stopped their own conversations, and were listening intently to Steve. There was not a hint of annoyance in their body language, and my guess is that they learned a lot they didn't know about the subject. Incidentally, Steve was speaking at a perfectly normal, conversational level, not at all unduly loud.

I shudder to think what might have happened if someone had come over and asked Steve to chnage the subject  :wow:

I go along with the view that the rules for conversation in a restaurant are just the same as the general rules which govern civilized and considerate behavior. Whatever is reasonable is allowable.

[jaybee]

Speaking of the English:

Last fall, we, with our usual suspects, were enjoying a wonderful lunch at the Moulin du Roc in the Dordogne.  The table next to ours was populated by two English couples in their early seventies.  Mid-way through our main course and their dessert, wifey began to recount the time hubby nearly severed his thimb with a chain saw.  Descriptions of blood, bits of flesh and ensuing infection with pus and foul odor of putrifaction were floridly given.  How they could shovel mouthsful of cream and berries into the same craws that were talking about such disgusting sights and smells was beyond me.  

Being the nasty guy that I can be, I started a new conversation at our table during a lull in theirs.  I started talking about a recent visit to a city morgue and the medical examiners' office for research I was doing on a project. My companions did not share my nasty streak and so discouraged me from developing the theme to its fullest potential.  Alas,

a score unselttled.

I wouldn't have dreamed of asking them to change the subject of their conversation, to which they had every right.  People never fail to fascinate me.

[heyjude]

What if Jaybee's assailant had come over to ask him to go home and change his clothes because they offended her or to sit up straight because her sister had spuna bifida or (to keep it a matter of speech) to stop talking about anything at all that reminded her of her loss? We are overly sensitive about death here and it allows creeps like John Edward to exploit very sad people and that selfindulgent woman to try to spoil Jaybee's meal.  I believe in normal voice level conversation about any subject, uninterrupted by strangers unless they have something really juicy to add. Short of crying, "FIRE" in a crowded restaurant, no subject should be off limits.

[Rosie]

The woman had chutzpah.

[tommy]

for the people who think that this woman was totally out of line, can i ask:  what if you had a loved one who died 9/11 (and i'm sure some egulletters did), and it was 9/18 let's say, and someone next to you was making "jumping out of the WTC" jokes in a normal speaking voice, and it was suspected that your brother jumped from the 103rd floor, are you saying that you wouldn't feel compelled to say something, or in the very least you can't see how this woman might have been?

[Rosie]

I hear you Tommy. Well, I read you. But it was up to this woman to move and not inflict her needs on a stranger. Or someone at the table could have said something to the manager and he could have handled the situation. We were once at a restaurant where Lowell and I were discussing what to order and the man next to us said something insulting about our choices. The woman at the other table was so embarressed that she walked out of the restaurant leaving the man to dine by himself. Management  appologized to us.

[tommy]

i'd be amazed if all of these people can tell me with a straight face that they've never once been moved enough about something to say something to a stranger.  nonsense.  we all have.  and i g*ddamn know that if you didn't say something, you rolled your eyes and went "tck" or "sigghhh" loud enough so half the bus/room/whatever could hear, just as 90% of the population seems to do.  

yuck.

"you", of course, doesn't mean anyone here in particular.  just a general "you".  

[John Whiting]

This evening I was telling our table-mates a story about an acquaintance who asked that his deceased wife's ashes be buried in our rose garden (don't ask). I said the idea made me uncomfortable, as it would disturb my reverie lying in the hammock, smoking a cigar and sipping piña colada thinking that someone was buried under the roses.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't imagine such a witty anecdote being told without laughter, both by the teller and by the audience. It was, I suspect, the wryly comic incongruity between the ashes of the diseased and the ashes of the cigar that the woman found particularly upsetting.

Now, this is not to justify her course of action -- that is a separate question. However, this graphic detail makes me rather more inclined to accept the sincerity of her request.

[Wilfrid]

When I started reading this thread, I was in the "people are entitled to discuss whatever they like" corner.  Tony and Tommy have persuaded me otherwise.  I can think of a number of conversational gambits which would prompt me to complain to an adjoining table.  For example, if I was overhearing racist remarks, I wouldn't think it was up to me to ask to be re-seated.