Dinner and a Show

As a single man, I find cooking for myself to be impractical as an everyday practice. I’m quite capable of it: I host Thanksgiving at my house for at least a dozen (often more) guests every year as well other seasonal get-togethers and summer BBQs. But that is the point: what is practical for a group is not necessarily so for an individual. Oh, I’ll make a sandwich or warm up something ready-made, but seldom anything more ambitious than that when I’m home alone. So, most days I’ll eat out for one meal; it can be any one of the usual three, but most commonly lunch. It doesn’t cost any more than eating at home – there is always substantial unintended waste when grocery shopping only for oneself – and the meals are better. Naturally, these aren’t expensive restaurants, but modestly priced diners and coffee shops. Fortunately, NJ has more independently owned non-chain diners than any other state, so they aren’t hard to find.

I usually sit at the counter in the places that have counters. There is a curious thing about being a “counter guy.” Counter guys are apparently invisible to anyone but the waiters and waitresses. People in booths within easy earshot of the counter stools will have the most remarkable personal conversations. Mind you, I don’t go to these places to eavesdrop. I go there for a burger, omelet, or Reuben or something, but when someone four feet away is complaining about a philandering spouse at a volume louder than the background music, short of slapping hands on one’s own ears and humming, it is hard to shut out the words no matter how much one would like to do so. Invisibility is not deafness.

I’m often the only person at the counter. Nowadays, most single patrons opt for booths, but counters were much more popular when I was younger as one veteran waitress confirmed to me. (Some counter waitresses – to whom I’m usually “hon” or “sweetie” even if they know my name – are chatty when business is slow; the waiters just ask if I want a refill of coffee.) “Twenty years ago,” she told me, “there was still a counter culture.” (I’m not sure if she intended her own pun.) “The counter guys were very regular,” she said. “They came in at the same time every day and had the exact same order.” She pointed at my Western omelet and said, “If it was a Western, it was always a Western. I would tell the cook to put it on as soon as he walked in the door.” I had the feeling I was a disappointment for never ordering the same thing twice in a row.

Except to the diner employees, however, my invisibility seems to engage as soon as my posterior hits the stool. From that moment, none of the other customers seem to care (or notice) if their voices project counter-ward. (I don’t know any of them, of course, which no doubt is a big factor in their disregard.) There is a noticeable gender difference in conversation among customers as well as among servers. The stereotype that men don’t talk about personal or emotional matters is untrue. They do. Often excessively. I know this for a fact. For whatever reason though, they don’t seem to do it much in diner booths, at least not audibly. Mostly I hear them talk about road trips and expenses and work deadlines and home maintenance and so on. Sometimes there is a remark that some business associate is a jackass, but without illuminating details. The less discreet conversations are almost always among women. I’ve heard an older woman give a younger one advice on how to deal with a fiancé whose ex is manipulating him with the kids. I’ve heard about difficult relatives at funerals, about break-ups, about evil bosses, about bad dates, about faithless friends, and about aggravating mothers. I heard two decide to walk out without paying because they didn’t like the Caesar salad. (I’ve had that diner’s Caesar salad, which tasted to me like every other Caesar salad I’ve ever had.) Once again, I don’t go there with the intent of listening to conversation. It’s like the music out of the diners’ speakers: it’s just in the air and hard not to hear without making a spectacle of oneself – and that would create another topic of ambient conversation.

According to biolinguist and author John Locke in Eavesdropping: An Intimate History, humans are hardwired to listen to surrounding conversations, and he says that the habit makes us better people. He means passive hearing, which is a kind of situational awareness. He doesn’t advocate active eavesdropping such as phone tapping, hacking, peeking through keyholes, or Jimmy Stewart’s version of voyeurism in Rear Window, though he does say the impulse to do so is a product of evolution “because there is no group of people in the world, no society that doesn’t do this, and that hasn’t been doing this for recorded history.” Children learn much about how to behave not just by direct experience but by overhearing other children and adults around them. Adults continue to adapt to social expectations in different environments the same way. So the invisible counter guy can’t really help overhearing all that, but at least (if Locke is right) it will make him a better person, so that is something.

Linda Ronstadt - Girls Talk