Eating With Your Hands
or, the tension of expectations
Perception
Over two decades ago, at the beginning of my corporate employment, I was sent to a “leadership program” by the business. It remains one of the more unique experiences of my lifetime as the entire thing happened at a time when the vibes of corporate employment were shifting. In the “old” world, being a leader at the company meant living your entire professional life working for The Company(tm). In the “new” world, there is no expectation of living one’s entire life working for a single company that was approaching 150 years of doing business. One of the most valuable things that came from that program was that I learned dining etiquette. That is, I learned the “proper” way to eat in polite society.
I wore a tie to work every day back then. In fact, at first I even brought a sport coat. As a fucking computer nerd. Clean-shaven. Slacks. All my piercings removed. We had to be presentable, you understand? Customers might walk through our corner of the headquarters where the nerds sat at our mainframe terminals contemplating the esoterica of the green text on the black screen. I don’t believe I ever saw a customer wander through, but even so. Perception mattered and “perception was reality.”
What was important was the appearance. What mattered was the aesthetics. Form, not function, was the primary concern. And this tension is something I’ve seen showing up my entire life — but never more strongly than when I learned dining etiquette.
Appearance matters.
Fancy Eats
If the point of eating is to get food into your belly to burn energy, then there is little that is actually functional about fancy dining. Having 3 forks and 4 spoons does not make eating food easier. Breaking food into courses where everyone is eating the same thing at the same time does little to improve the basic mechanics of consumption. Using the napkin correctly. Holding your utensils in the accepted manner. Positioning your utensils correctly when finished. None of these things are really related to enjoying a meal, they instead have other purposes. They are about signaling and control.
The message is clear. I am wealthy enough and educated enough to know which fork to use. I am part of your social group and social class. I am sophisticated and erudite. I am differentiated from the common class and can even communicate with them without bothering to draw breath to speak to them. See me and see that I am one of you and not an Other.
To some extent everyone understands this. It is why folks get nervous having to eat at fancy places if, like me, they didn’t grow up in that world. They understand that it’s about Othering those that lack the prerequisites to sit at the pretty tablecloth and eat with the fancy folks. I’ve always hated that separation, that differentiation of “Us vs. Them.”
And yet it matters.
Heuristics
What I’m really describing is a problem-solving device known as a heuristic. A quick way of getting a best-guess approximation of an answer. In fancy dining the question is whether someone shares my educational and financial background. In the Super Bowl Halftime show it is whether I am sufficiently liberal. Is this person like me?
Our lives are filled with heuristics and the aesthetic heuristic is actually one of the most frequently used to answer the question of whether we need to spend energy and attention on someone. Are they well-groomed? Do they smell? Are their clothes falling apart? Do they have an odd accent? Is their skin the right color? Do they possess the right reproductive organs? Worship the right god? Do they make eye contact? Do they speak with respect? Do they find the correct gender sexually attractive? Are they enough like me?
I like to think that some of those questions there are fucking with you, Dear Reader. At least I really hope they’re fucking with you, because peppered in there are some pretty screwed up heuristics. But they all serve the same purpose of giving us an approximation of someone else relative to us. They tell us something about what level we want to relate to them. They direct our thoughts and perceptions.
The choices lie in deciding which heuristics matter. I will comfortably argue that skin color is not only a valueless heuristic but something that immediately teaches me about the person using it. A racist heuristic is, at least now, a problematic heuristic. Not so much with some others. But I think perhaps many acceptable heuristics fall into this category. What does it matter if someone knows which fucking fork to use?
And yet it matters.
Exceptions
I once found myself having very expensive drinks with executives. A $50 pour of bourbon that was easily the best drink I’d ever had. The fact it was the best drink I had ever had was a signal to me that I was swimming in very unfamiliar waters. Another signal was that everyone else had suits on while I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. In fact, during introductions it had even been commented on — “You’re one of those engineers that’s so good at your job you can be here in a t-shirt aren’t you?”
I mulled that piece of banter over in the back of my head for the rest of the night. I am not the most socially adept but I appreciated that comment, and the subsequent interactions quite a bit. It recognized that there was a heuristic in our introduction —that I wasn’t dressed “correctly” — while dismissing it in favor of recognized expertise. The rest of the night, however, was important. The initial comment could have been “breaking down a barrier” or it could have been smugly ostracizing me. It was what happened after recognizing the difference that told me he was a good guy — he included me, listened to my input, and generally treated me as an equal with an expertise different from his. He was a good dude with good choices in very expensive bourbon.
Similarly, I am not very familiar with chopsticks. Which is to say, I’m still very much trying to figure out how to use the damn things. Much like fine dining etiquette, this could be ostracizing and yet it never has been. At friends’ houses a fork is offered, which I declined because fuck that I can figure these things out. Eventually. And even out to eat with friends at Korean BBQ it was just accepted that the uncultured redneck dropped things occasionally.
It’s nice when it doesn’t matter.
Tensions
Shortcuts are human nature, and in fact are probably one of the most powerful things that we have. Shortcuts are fucking useful. They are something that allows us to function at a higher level of mental modeling, pattern recognition, and problem solving. But always there’s a need to recognize when the shortcut becomes something to trick ourselves into feeling superior. Feeling superior should mostly just be a red flag, I think, but questioning the social hierarchy is part of being human.
So appearances matter. Perception is reality. Knowing which fucking fork to use can matter. Wearing the fancy clothes can matter. Not because they actually matter in terms of abilities but because we’re wired to sort everything into what is like us and what is not like us.
So I am thankful that decades ago I learned how to use the right fork. I’m thankful for friends who will let me struggle in a safe place with chopsticks. And even if Squirt and I both would much rather be eating with our hands for most meals, we’ll keep working on him using a fucking fork. Sigh.
Squirt Says…
I feel like all the unnecessary things done to show apparent superiority are stupid. The only problem is that nowhere you go can you find people without these quite unnecessary things. It's childish. It’s for people to shout, “Hey, Look At Me I’m Better Than You!” just with fancy clothes and unnecessary manners.
Dad Says…
I think this is a fair read. At some point I need to sit down and write a bit about why being respectful doesn’t fall into this trap though. Maybe next time.
Just…take in that image. Wow.