About two months ago, I met a guy for dinner in Union Square. We've sat down and as we're talking and going over the menus, he observes that I'm from Iowa, where I'd lived almost my entire life, and I haven't been in the city for very long, "Am I running from something?" "Isn't everyone?" I counter. I decide to tell him, because the conversation up to now has been good, and if he can't handle it, well, I know now. I tell him I was married for ten years, and it's this point that our server comes over to ask if we're ready to order. I've barely had time to look at the menu, never mind figure out what I want. Sometimes I have an idea and I can make a decision if the other person goes first, but that's not going to do it here. "No," I say to her, "Come back."
From the other side of the table, he tells me later, this story looks a little bit different.
He asks me if I'm running from something and I look visibly concerned, and I think about it for a minute and make the decision to say, "I was married for ten years." The server, who has been eavesdropping on the conversation from behind us almost from the moment she realised this was a first date, immediately comes over to rescue me, "Are you ready to order?" So now I have the opportunity to order, change the subject, forget about it and move on in the evening. She's doing me a favour. And I, in response to her, snap, "No! Come back." I do not need rescuing, I am going to tell the story and I'm OK with that. The waitress is so shocked by my reaction that she gets another server to take over our table, because she just can't with me anymore. "She's tough," he thought.
I did not recognise the second story until it was told to me. Yes, I noticed that we had a new waitress later on, but I did not put it together that I'd smacked down an opportunity to be rescued from a difficult line of inquiry. It's not even part of my thinking, that I would stop talking about something that might be uncomfortable once I'd started telling it.
She is tough, she just doesn't always notice it.
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