The Modern, Oblivious, Restaurant Diner

Readers, take thirty seconds to read this Craigslist posting, published by an apparently frustrated New York City restaurant owner. (Also here.)

There's so much to say about this posting, starting with the fact that it's possibly not entirely true. Sometimes, though, things that aren't entirely true tend to resemble the truth far more than things that actually happen. (Which is why newsroom editors tell idealistic young reporters to "save the truth for your novel!")

Thus there's a reason why this Craigslist posting resonated with people as much as it did: it shows something true, deeply true, about us as modern customers: We've become needier, more distracted, more annoying, more oblivious, and less and less present than ever. Here's what I mean:

1) We pay little to no attention to reality. Look across any random sample of people today--at restaurants, while shopping, walking down the street, wherever--and you'll see a staggering percentage of them staring or texting into their phones.

2) We're never happy enough with what comes our way. Examples: customers nitpicking about where they sit, getting up and changing tables, micro-managing their food orders, sending their food back.

3) We need to be led, behaviorally speaking, to perform basic tasks, like putting down our phone and opening a menu. And then, later, we apparently need to be led once again to choose something from that menu.

4) We need to make everything we do into some form of conspicuous display.* This helps explain peoples' neurotic need to post photos of their food, or their need to share photographic proof of conspicuous leisure activities over social media. More on this in just a minute.

5) We no longer seem to be "here" anymore. Instead of being present in the here and now, our attention is elsewhere. We're anywhere but where we are.

Another word or two about conspicuous display. It's not just that people seem less and less "here" in the psychological sense. It's that they also need all the cool things they're doing to be seen by people who aren't even physically here with them either. Social media was created to fulfill this need to be seen, and it does it so well that it's almost as if an experience doesn't count--or perhaps never even happened--unless there's some meta-representation of it online.

Look, it's a free country, and the last thing I want is for this post to sound like some "kids these days!" rant. Come to think of it, it can't be a kids these days rant when people of my own demographic are among the worst offenders. But is that little glowing rectangle really that interesting? Is blarfing out our lives online really so important that it's worth interfering with reality to do so?

Readers, what do you think?


* See Thorstein Veblen's difficult but mind-bending book The Theory of the Leisure Class, particularly Chapter 3, "Conspicuous Leisure" and Chapter 4, "Conspicuous Consumption" for more here. For a book written in 1899, it's astonishing how predictive it is of modern consumerism and modern identity construction.





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How to Use Food and Wine Jargon Without Sounding Pretentious

"Ah, this wine is steamy, racy and upside-down. Oh, and with a great nose!"

It's one thing to hear a genuine oenologist make this statement. It's another thing entirely to hear it from someone who just finished Wine For Dummies and now mistakes himself for an expert.


The problem with wine and food (and, for that matter, classical music and art), is that the sensations and experiences of these disciplines are extremely difficult to describe in plain English. Thus, each discipline naturally develops its own specialized jargon as shorthand for difficult-to-explain concepts.

There's more. Jargon can be a useful signalling device (a doctor can easily reveal himself to another doctor by tossing off a few key technical terms and phrases), and jargon can act as a barrier to a profession (lawyers create a comprehension barrier around their field by using a sort of shadow language of terms and expressions). At its worst, jargon can allow two insiders to have an entire conversation in front of an outsider without the outsider comprehending a single word (think two doctors discussing your case in front of you as if you aren't even there).

Food and wine, however, are different. After all, everybody eats, many of us drink, and most of us are on a mission to learn more about what we're eating and drinking. So it's inevitable that we'll pick up at least some eating and drinking terms, if only to help us talk about what we're experiencing.

But there's a distinct line between discussing a subject and slinging jargon like a sanctimonious blowhard. Which reminds me of a former Wall Street colleague named Bentley*, who, in the few short years I knew him, gave me a lifetime's worth of amusing food and wine snob stories.

Within days of deciding that he wanted to become an expert in wine, Bentley began asking for the "head sommelier" at all of his business dinners. He'd then sling ten minutes' worth of inaccurately-used jargon at the poor sommelier, oblivious to the wincing of everyone around him--including the wincing of the sommelier himself, who would be a fool in any event to correct a customer on an expense-account meal. At long last, Bentley would invariably select the most expensive wine on the menu, leading us all to wonder: why ask for a sommelier's help when you knew you what you were going to pick all along?

So, when in the company of friends, family or colleagues, how can we discuss food and wine intelligently without sounding pretentious? Here are a few ideas:

1) If you're the only person at the table slinging jargon, you're being pretentious. It doesn't matter if you're being insightful, it doesn't matter if you use every term correctly, and it doesn't matter if you're absolutely right about everything you say. Just stop.

2) Read the people around you. If you think you might be at a higher food or wine "level" than the people you're with, cut way back on the jargon and terminology. Don't create a situation where the people you're talking to can't understand what you're talking about.

3) Listen. Let others speak and share their experiences, thoughts and preferences. You might be surprised at how much you learn.

4) Ask questions, don't hold forth. Ask other people around you what they think about what they are eating and drinking. Help out by getting the conversation going, and don't expect to be in the center of it.

5) Finally, you can always use finger quotes and a self-deprecating tone of voice whenever you find yourself forced to use a jargon term. After all, finger quotes are the cure for everything, aren't they?

Readers, what else would you add? And do you have a favorite wine- or food-snob story to share?

* Note: Bentley is not (quite) a real person. He's a composite of several people I knew from my Wall Street years, and for obvious reasons I've completely disguised his identity--after all, Wall Street is smaller than you might think.

Related Posts:
How to Start a Casual and Inexpensive Wine Tasting Club
27 Themes and Ideas for Wine Tasting Club Meetings
How Do You Define Truly Great Restaurant Service?
Ten Rules for the Modern Restaurant-Goer
On the True Value of a Forgotten Restaurant Meal

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