- Communal Tables: Better than a Confessional!
I don’t have the angst about communal dining many seem to harbor; my experiences had been generally positive… Until yesterday.
While eating for review at a new joint in North Portland, my companion and I were seated at a communal table. Initially, we were far enough from fellow diners to feel a modicum of personal space. That all changed when, halfway through our delicious meal, a couple of aged ladies were seated about three feet from us. Upon arranging themselves, they launched almost immediately into a conversation about hemorrhoids and various invasive surgeries meant to remove fleshy things from their bodies.
The conversation was inescapable. What. The. Fuck.
This is not simply a danger of communal dining. The previous day, in the same restaurant, I endured another inescapable conversation from another set of women about a long, slow, sad, ugly cancer death.
Lovely. And it happens more than you might expect. Then again, I’m dining out three to four days a week. So the law of averages (I actually don’t know what that is and I’m too lazy to Google it) would suggest I’d be more likely to experience this kind of collateral overshare.
I understand that people need to talk about personal issues with friends. It’s integral to life. I also understand the sense of perceived privacy in a restaurant is nearly immediate and enduring. But I ask that you be just a little bit aware, for my sake and yours. I assume you don’t want me to hear about your distended bleeding anus. And I really don’t want to picture your surgery while tucking into my fucking omelet.
Help me out, Blogtownies! What do you do in these situations? Do you politely ask your neighbors to change the subject? Do you join the conversation with something even more disturbing like, “OH YEAH? YOU SHOLDA SEEN THE INTESTINAL PARASITE MY KID SHIT OUT YESTERDAY!” Do you just sit there and deal with it? Give me your tactics in the comments, below.
This is one of the many reasons the communal thing is a nightmare from hell.
If you’re forced to do it, however, please limit your conversation to something you assume everyone else is listening to and will comment on – yet another pet peeve reason I hate it.
Although I am also too lazy to Google it, odds are if I don’t know you, I don’t like you.
Talk to your companion about that lady’s hemorrhoid.
If find your examples endearing, and not nearly as vapid as listening to some self-involved narcissist describe what they want to do when they grow up and graduate from college, or explain why Vampire Weekend is good.
You just described half my bus rides, Guilty Carnivore.
Very few places can pull of the communal thing. Most of the time, I just think “why not get some seperate tables?”
I would discretly ask the server to be re-seated. I don’t want my meal/appetite (and money) wasted by some loud, rude, dum-dums.
Basically, I just never eat at places with communal tables. “Overrated” doesn’t begin to cover it.
Fuck communal tables… They’re confusing and annoying. I talk about weird shit every time I eat but at least I have the decency to discuss it after my entree and before desert.
SHEESH!
I think photographing the offenders and posting photos here with quoted dialogue is appropriate.
In defense of communal tables, my date sat at one-and I met a couple on vacation, had a fantastic time.
I usually just start by saying, “I’m terribly sorry, but we can hear too much about your personal life. Could you either please change the subject or keep it down a bit?” Oh, and say it in a posh British accent, so that they are so charmed or ashamed that they shut it.
This is the kind of stuff that gets people on http://www.oversharers.com !
Maybe the North Portland ladies are part of an underground campaign to gross out hipsters so they will move back to Hawthorne and take their irony and overpriced bullshit with them. Brilliant! Let me tell you about my boils…