I was leaning against the door frame. My feet were planted in the no man’s land between my co-worker’s office and the hallway, a spot deemed safe by the California earthquake league. She was telling me about her date night with her husband.
“So it turned out to be Angus, not Kobe.”
“Angus?”
“The burger,” she said. “Lower than Kobe but still a really good burger. Also, the best shoestring fries.”
“I love shoestring fries.” I didn’t, really, but I didn’t want to impede the flow of conversation.
“Then you should check this place out. Great date spot. It was funny – you could tell all the married couples from the daters. The daters were talking nervously a mile a minute and the women were flipping their hair. They were all trying so hard. And then you see the married couples and they’re on their phones checking emails”-she demonstrated with her Blackberry-“and if they were talking, they were snarling at each other. Like, what do you want, I’m checking work email.”
I laughed.
“I pointed out the differences to my husband,” she continued. “He said, honey, but what we have is real. And it’s true, give me comfort and comfortable, any day.”
---
Some things you remember, suddenly, with no warning. When I turned 21, two of my girl friends took me to Las Vegas. We ate dinner next to a couple who barely spoke to each other during the entire meal. They weren’t sullen or sad or anything-they were just preoccupied with eating. Still, it made me feel a little sad for them. I made a mental note that I never wanted to sit through a silent meal.
So call me naive, but I still want that meal where I can look at someone and not want to look away, even if I have a very fine burger sitting on my plate and a smart phone tucked into my coat pocket.
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