The Meal with Friends

When a guy goes with a group of ladies to a lunch or dinner, there are many rituals that happen, and they all are weird.

1. The late person. Normally female, that calls, or 3 people try and call her, and get the play by play saga about a search for a lost shoe, a boyfriend who’s being a jerk, or a car story on the phone. Anyway, minutes later, she rushes in, kisses and hugs those who are probably in her top friends on Facebook list, then she sits down. We now hear the story again, this time with facial expressions, hand motions and a “Southern Gospel Preach and Respond” motif when she says, “You know what I mean,” and the other ladies respond, “Yes, Yes I do”. Theater and food, and now the guy has to find a way to sneak back into work, because of Willamina Shakespeare’s matinee performance.

2. The clothing comments. The table turns into a Tim Gunn-athon (Only much nicer, to their faces). “That’s such a cute top,” “Where did you get those earrings?”,  “Hey, the 80′s called and they want their Crimper back (Sorry, I threw that in for fun),” all the while the guy’s stomach is growling and he considers his next place of employment, or career choices.

3. The choosing of what to order. I don’t think Adam ate much (He’s very skinny in all the paintings, right?), because Eve had all that food to choose from, and that’s why she ate the apple, because Adam was tired of waiting for her to decide, and then he said, “Eat whatever you want,” then the talking serpent took it from there, and we know where that ended up. Oh, back to the lunch stuff now.

Keep in mind, these women have ate at this restaurant before. They probably have the menu memorized (along with the storyline and episode number of every Friends episode, as well), but it takes a female an excruciating amount of time to choose what they want to eat. Guys take about 10 seconds (20 seconds at the Cheesecake Factory) to look at a menu, and choose. Females look, scrutinize, and ponder how the choice they make will look to everyone else at the table (“That one time I ordered Chicken, Susie made that weird face. No Chicken, No Susie weird face. Sigh. What about Steak? Nope, Tammy was a vegetarian for 2 weeks for that guy she met at the Oxygen bar, and the last time she talked about him, she threw a chair. Nope, no steak…”). Then, a few minutes (Who am I kidding, lots of minutes later), the question comes, “What’s everybody gonna order?” Then as the answers come, more thinking and changing of minds as the discussion goes on and on, and on. The waiter finally arrives, and the planets align and the ladies make – a decision, and the meal really gets interesting.

4. The food arrives. When each plate is sat down, the ”Oh, that looks soooo good,” “I should have ordered that,” “Oh, what’s that?” The guy snidely replies, “It’s soup,” and is quickly kicked under that table. Great, now the guy will have to hobble into the unemployment office.

5. The sharing of food. Unless, it’s a football game, or on a deserted island. Guys don’t share food. However, women take “Let’s do lunch,” to a whole new level and treat the lunch table like a Las Vegas buffet table. “Oh, can I try that?” or “This is soooooo good, here, try some.” Now, this isn’t Hickory Farms or Costco, and none of these ladies are wearing hairnets, but this sharing of food seems really strange to me. If someone even touched my Rib Eye steak, there would be a TMZ incident. Just sayin’

6. The constant commentary. Women talking during a meal are like Vin Scully, only cuter and have a higher pitched voices. Guys hear about every little detail, with a “Broadway actress, over-exaggerated” flair that really demands a standing ovation mid meal. Not only, does the guy hear how good everything tastes, where someone had a similar meal on some exotic trip somewhere (Then we are taken on a verbal trip through the entire trip. The guy actually felt as drunk and tired as the lady explaining it when she was done talking), we hear about boyfriends, husbands, Mothers, Mothers-in-Laws, creepy guys at Barnes and Noble, What’s (name a popular star in the tabloids right now) doing now, and are also kept up about how full the ladies are feeling, and how they couldn’t eat another bite, etc, etc.

7. The goodbye. We’ve covered that before.

Ladies are different. In a good, way.

Related posts:

1. Classic MaD Blog – Women Have No Concept of Time
2. Classic MaD Blog – The Word Cute