go for dinner at the best of the local Indian buffet places, which had good food and was open and seemed like more than enough festivity for us. As we arrived and waited to be seated, my beloved husband and I smooched a little, feeling snuggly and fond. When we stopped, I saw a table of three to my left actively and animatedly (with gestures) debating our genders.
I loathe this. I don’t know why it bothers me more than other gender-related unpleasant behaviors, but it does, it screams of rudeness. Sometimes I just smolder, sometimes I go over and make a snarky comment about gender nonconformity not being positively correlated with hearing loss, sometimes I ask from where I stand in ringing tones if they could be any more rude. I have been known to approach and simply stare, puffed up and looking as imposing as I can, until they turn away or mumble an apology. I get terrifically activated by it. What’s worse, I cannot seem to stop, even though I try very hard to remember everything I know about gender and about kindness and about people and how we are all just trying to make it work as best we can. In a serious and worrisome way, however, this has not been a location of good behavior on my part. Nor has it been good for me.
Perhaps because I was in pleasant company, perhaps because it was right on the cusp of a new year, that night I took a deep breath, and somehow managed to make a different choice. I went to my seat quietly and thought about what to do, and I tried not to seethe or fume or snap at my dinner companions. When I got up to go to the buffet, I took the waiter aside and quietly told him I wanted to pay for their dinner, and to please add their check to mine. It somehow deflated me a little. I let out my long-held angry sigh and refocused on the food (tasty) and the company (ditto) and how good it smelled in the restaurant and how pleased I was to be wearing my nice new shirt. I had an idea of what might happen with the gender-performing strangers. But mostly I felt calmer, and was better company at dinner, and enjoyed my meal more. Most importantly, I wasn’t angry with them anymore. Sometimes I really resent that whole thing about forgiveness and kindness and how it makes you feel so much better—I am pretty much a New Yorker, after all—but it totally works.
I intermittently kept an eye on their table. After a while, it was time for them to pay, and the pantomime I was able to read from across the room was pretty much what I had anticipated. The waiter explained that we were picking up their check. They looked puzzled, talked about it a bit amongst themselves, and elected their representative. The guy who had been dining with two women walked over looking cheerful but a bit hesitant. He said that they’d told him we were buying their dinner, and thanks very much, um . . .
I stood up and introduced myself, Ishai, and Zev before he had an opportunity to get any further. We shook hands all around. He went on to say thank you again, and that it was so nice, but . . . had we met before? Was he forgetting us? He fumbled his way through his questions, trying hard to figure out why we were buying their dinner without offending us in case we were old friends from university or business colleagues he didn’t recognize out of context or, er, something.
Taking a deep breath, I simply said that we’d noticed them talking about us when we arrived, and that we’d thought they might like a reason to come over and meet us in person. And then I shut up and waited.
He paused, dropped his head a little bit, and took a breath. To his credit, he didn’t dissemble or try to offer some sort of junk excuse. Then he said, sort of quietly, “That’s a remarkable gesture,” and picked his head back up and shook hands all ’round again. As he did, he said, “It’s good to meet you,” and he sounded as though he genuinely meant it. We wished each other a happy New Year, they left, and we had dessert.
I cannot tell
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