How to Dine in a Dullard-Free Zone
A fiendish social trick to oil the wheels of friendships.
A bit of background
I was reminded of this brilliant social trick very recently, and given that the person I told, was not only astounded at its genius, but also very regretful that her life had been devoid of it so far, I naturally couldn’t help but want to share it with you.
Note-taking is allowed.
We’ve all been there… out to dinner with your partner’s old friend and their other half, which generally speaking, is an absolute joy, I’m sure you’d agree, but very occasionally, it can be viewed as nothing short of a chore.
Let’s do the math…
In this example, I’m going to use married man/woman couples (mainly because of the short acronyms they result in), but I’m pretty sure this must happen in every ‘couple + friends’ scenario, in both long and short term relationships and same sex couples.
So let’s assume that Mrs.A has met and married the man of her dreams, Mr.A, who’s friend is Mr.B, who is married to Mrs.B.
There you are, scientific proof that Mrs.A is three social steps away from Mrs.B, so it’s no wonder, that they might not be a conversational match made in heaven.
Mrs.A will be bracing herself for more updates of Mrs.B’s dog’s dentistry débâcles.
And in turn Mrs.B is only banging on about her dog, to steer the conversation safely away from Mrs.A’s precocious daughter, whom she gave up all hope of feigning interest in after a particularly medal-tastic Sports Day retelling.
I’m sure you’re all aware of this seating arrangement (above), also known as ‘The Nightmare Scenario’ where the two besties naturally sit opposite each other leaving poor Mrs.A staring down the barrel of Mrs.B’s latest colonoscopy saga.
The boys happily chat away like it’s the best night out ever, and the girls end up desperately trying to find some common ground over the latest TV offering.
If they both watch Married at First Sight all is golden, otherwise it’s a long uphill battle to the cheeseboard.
I can heavily relate to this situation, and I’m sure you can too, it’s simply logical that it should happen on such a regular basis.
But fear not, I have a solution to this very scenario, and despite the clear and present danger of revealing it to my trusted subscribers (which includes a lot of my friends, eek!), I have decided to let you in on my secret solution.
I think you’ll agree, that this fiendish set-up, which I devised after years of hard slog at dinner tables across London and the home counties, is as effective, as it is simple and easy to deploy.
So listen up chaps, your social life is about to get an upgrade…
The Diagonal Rule
This theory, which I can assure you has been tried and tested many many times with myself and Mr.D… and our (hopefully) unsuspecting friends, is this:
Once again we have Mr & Mrs A (that’s us!), dining out with Mr & Mrs B (the friends).
Here’s the trick…
Let Mr & Mrs B select their seats at the table first.
Even if ‘ladies first’ is employed, Mrs A needs to hang back long enough for Mrs.B to select her seat.
Mr.B, will then automatically choose one of these two scenarios:
Either works perfectly well.
Don’t fear the diagonal, no couple will ever seat themselves diagonally opposite each other on an empty table, in western society. It has never even been attempted.
This is the genius bit…
You then both seat yourself diagonally from your opposing number:
So whichever one of you has the strong friendship ends up diagonally opposite from each other, as do the social misfits.
The two besties will lead the charge conversationally resulting in the table having just one conversation with all four of you, instead of two conversations with two people each.
The social misfits then get to not only enjoy socialising with their partner and their friend too, but if repeated often, this also allows enough familiarity to establish between the misfits to potentially garner their own friendship.
Obviously your partner, needs to be in on this game play so they can co-conspire with the seat selection.
The good news is that you will find them very eager to play along, as it means you will not try and put the kibosh on future evenings of this kind, and so the net result will be more time with their friend! 👏
The only loser in this scenario is the cab driver, who used to get a kick out of your relentless whining, as you venomously raked over the evening all the way home.
In summary
I can honestly say that we are not currently employing this methodology with any of our friends and their other halves, so if you’re reading this and suspect we might have, you can rest assured that we love you both.
Have fun with it, and yes, we will spot it, if you try this on us!
You’re welcome.
K8x
PS: If you try this out on a future event, do let me know how it went on a DM. Absolute secrecy is guaranteed.
DISCLAIMER: All characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Other initial capitals are available.
Join in the comments below:
Will you be using this method in future?
Do you have an equally fiendish method of your own you’d like to share?
Do you and your partner have a social safe word which means: “We need to leave now before I explode?”
Thank you for being here, please ❤️ (below) if you enjoyed this piece, but please don’t share it, the less people know about this the better.
Brilliant! I am personally not always awesome in forced social situations with strangers and this “fix” is perfect. Let’s me slide into (and out of) the conversation stream with little awkwardness.
A-MAZ-ING ... have screenshotted diagram and sent to husband for future reference when he tries to get me to socialise with his cricket friends and their wives!!!!