eating out alone

[boxofdelights]

I eat out alone a lot. I like it. I bring a book.

I'm a creature of habit. I like going to the same restaurant every week. I also like the fact that waiters remember whether you are a good tipper, even if you are a fat middle-aged odd shabby woman eating alone, with dirt under her fingernails and a book.

Pretending that a professional interaction is a personal one is always going to make me uncomfortable. It's hard enough making eye contact and small talk with my friends, when I really like them and I trust that they really like me. I understand that service workers pretend to like customers because they (or their managers) believe customers like it. I cope with it as well as I can.

This musing brought to you by a new waiter at my favorite restaurant, who addressed me as "my dove". Immediately after a conversation with the people at the next table in which he disclosed that he did not know who Warren Zevon was. If you do not know who Warren Zevon was then you are too young to even pretend to flirt with me. I do not expect you to know this rule, child, since I just made it up, but if you are going to flirt professionally then I do expect you to know that if a woman suddenly stops making eye contact or even looking in your general direction after you address her as "my dove", that is not your cue to ramp up the flirting and the leaning and the hip-shot lingering and the amount of emotion you put into urging her to enjooooy her dinner.

Comments

[vito_excalibur]

There is something so deliciously decadent about going out to eat by yourself with a book. Mmm.

[kaigou]

I had a kid -- like, just-out-of-high-school kid -- call me "sweetheart", once, at a restaurant. I was in a foul enough mood already (travelling for work does that to me) that I told him upfront that he'd best get another waiter to work my table, because he was twenty years too young to talk down to me.

I still rankle at "ma'am," sometimes, but I've gotten to the realization that I'll still take a dozen ma'ams over any infantilizing diminutive.

[boxofdelights]

This kid called me "miss"! And "Susan", after I had given him my credit card. Before I filled out the tip. While he was hoping that I would enjoooooy the rest of my evening.

[boxofdelights]

Yes indeed. I think of the Sarah Caudwell character who "cast off all conventional restraints and devoted herself without shame to the pleasure of the moment. She took from her handbag a paperback edition of Pride and Prejudice and sat on the sofa reading it, declining all offers of conversation."

[firecat]

I've noticed lately that anyone old enough to be a grandparent is fair game for being flirted with by people in their 20s. (One of the times I noticed this was when I had to take my mother to the emergency room a couple of years ago, and the ER doctor, who looked kind of like a young Robert Plant, kept flirting with her. Now maybe he noticed that such behavior made his patients more alert, but it was just a little creepy to me.)

Anyway, I try to pretend the flirters are three years old, because three year olds flirt with everyone and it's cute.

But wow, "my dove"?

[vito_excalibur]

Or, why Burning Man was not the right place for me. :)

[boxofdelights]

Really!

[boxofdelights]

I wanted to say, "You're not from around here, are you?" I know several theatrical boys who've grown up in Fort Collins, and none of them address strange women as "my dove".

[jinian]

In fact, I would venture to say that I have never heard anyone in real life addressed as "my dove."

[wired]

As a person who has waited tables, I will tell you that flirting with people who came to the restaurant alone and read their books was a 15-50% increase in tips for me. I hope I was not so unclear on signals as this lad, but I understand his motivations.

Other tipping observations, because this made me think of them:
*Drag queens will tip liek woah for not making them feel like freaks. I love those ladies.
*On the other hand, the table of 20 pentacostals left me $10, a tract, and a handwritten note enjoining me not to work on the sabbath. Nice advertising, folks.
*Mountain climbers on their way off the mountain will pay you $20 for bringing them FRENCH FRIES, which are full of FAT, which they haven't had in days. Beer also good.
*Pretending not to notice someone is illiterate while subtly reading the menu to them will get you FAITHFUL repeat visits.
*When the hostess gets held up, the correct afteraction response is to feed her chocolate muffins, but not ask her about it.
*Men eating alone usually want conversation. Women eating alone only want conversation about half the time. Conversation about the book they are reading is an average $2 tip increase.

I am sorry the interaction was uncomfortable for you.

[cme]

I LOVE eating out alone with a book. It's one of my favorite things. There's not much that feels more decadent and self-caring to me than this. (I also love knitting and reading in coffee shops.)

(I found this post via three weeks for DW, and here I see that we know a few of the same people. Hello. :)

Here via the 'three weeks for dreamwidth' tag

[falena]

Pretending that a professional interaction is a personal one is always going to make me uncomfortable.

I couldn't agree more. I stopped going to a couple restaurants in the past precisely because the waiting staff didn't know the difference between being friendly and polite and overstepping the boundaries.

[boxofdelights]

Yeah, I recognize that icon. Hi!

[amaebi]

...and I love how that was at an orgy.

[amaebi]

Yeah, exactly. Wow.

[beaq]

I can just see my mom saying that "enjoooooooy" with an exaggerated lip motion and eyeroll.

[lcohen]

i recognize all you have said here, but i would say that waitstaff flirt with me all the time across all sorts of gender/age axes--that is, gay male waitrons flirt with me, presumably straight female waitrons flirt with me, very young waitrons flirt with me, and very old waitrons flirt with me--i think of it as social lubrication rather than flirting with intent where you need to make sure that the recipient is a socially appropriate recipient.

all of that has nothing to do with the fact that it makes you uncomfortable. i hope the waitron takes the hint.