“Hello sir, how many?”
“One please.”
“Of course. This way please.”
I come here occasionally because their spring rolls are awesome and make a good light lunch. They’re fresh, there are 3 of them, and they’re $4. I’m not a huge fan of the rest of the menu, but the service is friendly and those spring rolls are killer. Truly, there are three Thai restaurants within seven miles of this one that have better food, but not better spring rolls.
“Please sir,” the host said, gesturing to a table. I’m instantly distracted by her, a beautiful middle-aged Thai woman. With one eye pointing in a different direction than the other. A wildly different direction.
“Thanks,” I said. “No. Wait. What?”
“Sir?”
I’m glancing around the small restaurant, about 15 tables. There are about a dozen customers, in groups of two or three or four. There are a few, maybe four, small tables for two against the walls that are empty.
She’s asking me to sit at a table in the middle of the restaurant, by myself, at a table for eight. Eight! In the middle of the room!
“No, why?” I ask, perhaps more plaintively than I intend, still trying to discreetly decide on which eye to address. “How about that one?” I point at one of the tables designed for one or two people by the window. She nods, smiling warmly. I think she’s absolving me of my table insecurity and my “which one do I look at” conundrum.
Look man, I like eating alone. In fact I love it. When She is out of town, one of my favorite things to do is go out to eat, or go to a movie. Many, or most, of the people I know hate the notion of eating out alone. But I love it. I certainly don’t have to go through The Great Marital Sadomasochistic Cliche, I get to just get in the car and go eat the first thing that pops into my head. I’ll take my laptop and write, or I’ll listen to music, or I’ll eavesdrop on my neighbors…
“So yeah,” said the plain and attractive woman to the plain and indifferent gentleman sitting across from her. “When I lived in France I found the men there to be so French.”
Ugh. Is it a date? Does she hate silence so much that that sentence seemed like a good alternative?
“I know what you mean,” replied Plainly Indifferent. “I’d love to see France.”
Wait. Dude, how can you ‘know what she means’ without having ever been to where she’s talking about? It’s a date. With a moron. A Moronic Date.
“You’d love it.” She says, leaning in, warming up to her audience. “See, the people there are so casually cosmopolitan…”
That’s it. I can’t stand it anymore. I’m punching out. Their stupid date actually made my spring rolls taste sad. Now they need more chili oil to mask the taste of bourgeois bullshit. Sometimes when I eavesdrop, I get what I deserve.
As I was saying, I suspect that one huge reason I like being out in the world by myself so much is that it’s not my permanent state. Most of my time is spent sharing the world with my favorite person. And that means I get to really savor my time alone. And I do. I contemplate, I read the news, I write, I listen.
“…so it’s like this last time on the flight to Costa Rica,” says Wife to the other couple. “I start talkin’ up the stewardess, see…”
“Yeah, she starts jabber-jawing with this lady..” jokes Bowling-Shirted Husband, jabbing a thumb towards his wife, whom I suspect he calls ‘Mother’.
“Shhh,” Wife says. “It’s my story. Anyway, like I was saying, I start talkin’ up this woman, an’ I ask her, I says, ‘how bad is it now?’ an’ she says, ’is what bad?’ an’ I says to her, ‘well, you know..’”
“Her luggage ended up in Miami, wouldn’t you know.” injects Bowling Shirt.
“Shhh, this is my story.”
I love eating out alone.
And I love the company.
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