So, tonight is one of those rare occasions in your life when you've decided to put on some decent-looking clothes, pack some breath mints and head out on a date. You and your future spouse (you wish) sojourn to Chez Louie, a fancy restaurant on Newbury Street. The waiter approaches you.
"Bonjour, my name is Gaston, and I'm going to be your waiter tonight." You restrain yourself from laughing at his name's Disney origins. "Can I start you off with something to drink?"
You think, "Scotch on the rocks, hold the rocks."
You say, "I'll just have water with lemon, thanks."
After some mild-mannered conversation and a few awkward moments, it's time to order the food. Gaston brings over the menus, and you look at its massive pages, totally overwhelmed.
First of all, you aren't French. You have no idea where these restaurants get the gall to put their menus in their native language, knowing that few of their patrons will understand them. It seems like a poor marketing strategy to you. Then again, they are French, so you really can't expect much in the way of courtesy.
Secondly and more importantly, however, you have to think about the food itself, and herein is where the phobia lies. Here are some important questions you might ask yourself before ordering your repast:
1. Will it get all over my face?
2. How will my breath smell afterwards? Do I have the necessary artillery with which to fight the smelly aggressor if it chooses to attack?
3. Is it kosher? (That one goes out to my fellow Jews.)
4. How will I look while eating it?
5. Can I maintain proper etiquette while eating it?
6. Will my date imagine me 100 pounds heavier 20 years down the line? (After all, he doesn't know you've been starving yourself all day to fit into that little black dress.)
If these are the sorts of questions you ask yourself while eating in the presence of others, you have a serious phobia affecting millions of men and women.
Given my introductory scenario, you may think it somewhat atypical that a man would be affected by "food-o-phobia." Besides, a man is far less conscious of what a plate of ribs would do to the makeup he just spent all afternoon applying or that finger food might leave crumbs and gunk under his carefully manicured nails. This is a concept closely tied to my recent column, "Real-Man-o-Phobia."
A man might feel uncomfortable ordering a strawberry milkshake and sipping it indulgently in the presence of a girl he is trying to impress. So, we find that we can draw an interesting parallel here: while women may be afraid of seeming masculine while eating (by using their hands, being uncouth or ordering beefy meals), men are afraid of seeming feminine by not being masculine enough. Men must train themselves to be skillful eaters, to carefully cut the meat away from the rib and leave nothing on the bone.
I had a friend once who absolutely refused to eat in the presence of others. She would order a drink and maybe a salad or a basket of bread. Throughout the dinner, she would sit and watch everyone eat, smiling and nodding, all the while torturing herself.
When I asked her why she chose to be so intensely private about her eating, she insisted that it simply wasn't polite ... and she was afraid of her dentures falling out. She was 80.
You may be thinking to yourself, "Come on, Olivia. Just because I'm conscious of what I'm eating doesn't necessarily make me phobic. Give me a break!"
Before you go writing yourself out of my story, ponder whether or not you've ever been in the following situation: you're eating with a group of friends, having an argument about something totally irrelevant, when you have a stroke of genius and start to make (what you think is) an unbelievable point. Maybe you stand up, point some fingers, shout a little bit and attract attention in general. Then, in your moment of total glory (for all we know, this could be your 15 minutes of fame), a pea-sized speck of white flies out of your mouth and lands on your collar, or better yet, the collar of the person next to you. You panic. Do you apologize? Do you wipe the belligerent crumb of masticated fodder from your disgruntled neighbor?
Whatever you do, the point you were about to make has been disrupted and no longer holds any relevance. It could be the answer to the meaning of life, but that gosh darn food speck was just so ridiculous! Despite the fact that from an early age we are taught not to chew and speak at the same time, we keep doing it. A phobic, however, would refrain from the situation altogether.
Next time you are invited to a fancy dinner and diligently ponder the menu, realize how much thought you give to the six questions I mentioned earlier. There is a reason we are coerced into attending events such as cotillions and dining etiquette training sessions. Whether we want to or not, people are going to judge us by the food we eat and how we eat it. After all, we are what we eat.
