Jonathan Peterson ‘23
Satire Editor & Photographer
“Slow readers how are y’all doing today”, and welcome back to another week of steadily realizing that our social skills have been impacted by this pandemic to a far greater magnitude than we ever could have imagined. This week, we’ll be talking about something that mostly only 3Ls have the time and money for: dining out. As has been the trend with all the prior topics, the social situation at hand is, like a high school drama club performance, ripe with the possibility for error and embarrassment. However, this doesn’t mean you must relegate yourself to ordering through a restaurant’s delivery app. Follow these tips and believe what I tell you and, at the very least, you’ll be blissfully ignorant enough to leave the restaurant not understanding that things went as horribly as they did.
Obviously general dining etiquette applies to eating out just as much as, if not more than, it does to eating at home. Chew with your mouth closed, don’t talk and eat at the same time, use your napkin as appropriate, etc. These norms, while important, aren’t the interpersonal activities that are the focus of these articles. Instead, we look to interactions with the staff as our main learning area in today’s tips.
The first thing to remember when talking to staff is simple—you’re not as funny as you think you are. You weren’t funny before the pandemic, and you most certainly have not gotten funnier after your months locked up inside without another human in sight, let alone a human laughing at your jokes.[1] And even if I were to stipulate that you, being the special little gift to this world that you are, are in fact funny, I can almost definitely assure you that the overworked fifteen-year-old bringing you water does not care to hear your comedy routine in the slightest. And for the record, lest you doubt my assertions based on prior experiences which involved laughing waiters, let’s not forget about one thing: tips. Your typical comedy routine does not involve the comedian paying the audience to attend, listen, and laugh, with further payment contingent on their performance. Just keep that in mind the next time you're entirely off-point “I’ll have what she’s having,” lands a half-hearted laugh from that fifteen-year-old.
Tipping is another big one, and something I can be brief about. Just because we now have the blessed ability to pay for our meals online is not an excuse to tip less. In fact, the only excuse to tip less would be if restaurant employers paid their employees enough that we didn’t have to subsidize the entire restaurant by covering their paycheck as well as your overly drunk friend’s six-margarita tab. Just like the Constitution establishes the floor and not the ceiling, so too does the general belief that 20 percent is an appropriate tip. Be better, go above and beyond, and really pay up for that forced laughter you received earlier. It’s only fair.
Onto the final point: seating arrangements. If you’re on a one-on-one date, please, sit across from each other. No, don’t talk back to me, don’t try to explain yourself, I don’t want to hear it. If there are two empty chairs across from both of you as you crane your necks to look deep into the eyes and nostrils of your beloved, stop doing that. It wasn’t okay before Covid, and it hasn’t become okay after. Honestly, this isn’t even a Covid tip. I just needed a platform to put this opinion out there.
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jtp4bw@virginia.edu
[1] For the record, laughs coming from your parents or significant others do not count. They might feel affirming but let’s call it like it is: bias.