The Fear of Being Alone...In a Restaurant

This piece first appeared in January 15th, 2009 edition of the Pioneer Tribune, a weekly newspaper from Manistique, Michigan. Please visit their website: http://www.pioneertribune.com/

Restaurants are great places to meet new people. I don’t mean “meet” in the sense of meeting someone for lunch, I mean it in the way that you get to meet someone new, even if you don’t want to.

Over the years I have eaten in a lot of restaurants, and I can’t count how many times I’ve been in a situation where the restaurant is basically empty, enjoying a meal (or not), when another person or group of people will come in. They will take a look around the room, and then they must decide that a restaurant is a big and scary place, the kind of place where you need protection and safety, and since there is safety in numbers, they will invariably sit at the booth or table next to mine.

You see, there is a certain mentality that seems to exist inside the walls of a dining establishment. It is kind of a “herd” mentality, a mindset that says, “we can’t do this by ourselves, we must seek out someone with experience and stick close to them.” Kind of like modern day settlers, and instead of sitting in a covered wagon, they are sitting at a booth, and the mountain range has been replaced by the salad bar.

If it is an empty restaurant where you must wait to be seated, the scenario is basically the same. This time the hostess determines that the party waiting for a table is in need of security and seats that group next to me. It makes me feel kind of like a scout leading a wagon train through the mountain pass.

“Donner party? Your table is ready, right this way please.”

“These pilgrims will be safe with that fella,” she must reckon. “He’s been up to that buffet a time or two. He’ll get ’em through their meal safely.”

She’d actually be right. I am full of sage restaurant advice:

“You folks best leave that salt shaker alone. Never, and I mean NEVER use the salt shaker in a restaurant. Pepper shakers are safe, but you can never trust a salt shaker. Do you have any idea how many kids lick the tops of those things?! It happens every day!”

“Watch out for that soup, it’s ‘Cream of Yesterday’s Salad Bar.’”

Sometimes these people feel compelled to join in on the talk that is going on at your table. My good friend, Wayne Genghis, and I were dining with a crew of guys we had been working with in Wisconsin a few years back. A group of people were seated next to us in an otherwise empty (naturally) Italian restaurant. The waitress asked if we would care for anything to drink. The ever-joking Wayne Genghis ordered a “Roy Rogers.” In case you don’t know, a “Roy Rogers” is a non-alcoholic kiddie drink. It is the masculine counterpart to a “Shirley Temple.”

As if on cue, a man at the next table turned around and asked Wayne if he had ever been to the Roy Rogers Museum.

Wayne answered that he hadn’t been there and then listened patiently as the guy proceeded to explain all of the reasons Wayne needed to go and see it, the sooner the better. I’m convinced that the guy was heartbroken when Wayne didn’t get up and go to the phone to immediately charter a flight to Roy’s museum.

Even worse than having someone come in and sit near me is when I’m the one being seated. The place will be virtually empty and the hostess will determine that I’m the greenhorn and I need to sit next to someone else. This situation is less favorable because I am now the interloper. I am the one who has come along to ruin someone’s meal. I am confident that my own children have done much to enhance the dining experience of those around us.

Perhaps it is this herd mentality that may explain the popularity of “grill your own” restaurants.

“Hey! I know this great restaurant where you get to stand next to other people and cook your own food!”

“Can’t you just do that at home?”

“Sure you can, but it costs more at the restaurant, plus you get to listen to complete strangers tell you that you’re cooking your steak wrong. It’s great!”

I’m probably the only person annoyed by these things, so I’ll just have to accept it. I guess there will always be people who feel out of place if they aren’t near other people.

You folks go ahead and have a chair. If you need me, I’ll be at the front of the wagon train.