Saturday night dinner

There are always two ways to look at any situation – half empty or half full.  The perspective makes a great difference with your psyche and yet it is the same amount of water.   Last night, Saturday night, after I had gone to an arts gift sale, I took myself out to dinner.  Since I was alone, the hostess sat me at a very small table for two crammed in with other tables for many.  For a second when I sat I thought, gosh I wish I was eating with someone – anyone or better yet someone special.   Now, the Distillery is not a place where you look longingly across the table with wild anticipation of physical exercise to come later: it is a sports bar.  Ordering my draft, salad and cheese quesadilla I decided to say….gosh, I don’t have to have a conversation with anyone but can spend my wait for the food time, observing those about me.   I did a quick glance and picked four tables to watch and observe.  Having taken speech reading to compensate for my hearing loss, I was able to pick up a few words from across the room to get some idea of what was going on at each table.

To my right was a table of three adults.  Two were mid 40’s and had dull clothing and hardly spoke.  The man hardly looked up from his fork to mouth process and the woman only offered a few words.  With them was an older woman with a bright red sweater, white turtleneck, and some jewelry.  She was nursing a beer, eating a salad and carrying on a conversation with the two lumps on the other side of the table.  She reminded me of my mother, since it was apparent that she had thought about what she would wear that night rather than just letting the clothing fall on her.  She was very animated and did not get discouraged by the lack of interest or conversation.   She noticed me watching the table and I smiled with her returning the smile.  When she finished her beer, the man took out money from his wallet and put it on the table and walked out.  His apparent wife followed turning to be sure Mom was getting her coat on etc.   When the older woman left, she turned to me and said….have a great evening and I thought she might have thought it was she and I that were really eating dinner together.

At the next table was a young man, 16-18 who was just staring at the table that housed 6 others dinners.  The others were exchanging conversation with no awareness of the lad looking at the table.  His eyes were almost closed and he looked like he could cry.  When they others finished, they all got up and left and I will wonder if he made it out of his sadness.  I was glad to be alone.

That table was replaced by a table of five and couple and a woman with two children.  I use the word couple very loosely.   They had gold bands and sat next to each other and never said a word to each other.   The woman looked out the window and the man tapped his fingers on his wrist.  They will probably stay together but neither wanted to be there.  This made me pleased with my dinner companion since I like her and don’t have to fake being engaged. 

The last were two women eating together.  The one facing me was what you might call “plain” but she had a scoop neckline, her hair pulled back, glasses and was animated about everything she was talking about.  She had on a wedding band and was very engaged in listening and contributing to the conversation with her female friend.  She was happy and I thought she is making everyone in her life happy she is in their lives.  I would have liked to join that table.

As for the two couples… they reminded me that my glass was more than full…especially not being at their table or in their lives.