How to Survive a Group Dinner at a Restaurant
Imagine a party where everyone has to come and go at the same time, where some guests are only allowed to talk to two or three people all night, and there is a mysterious price ($ 20 to $ 80) that each guest pays locally. the end. You’ve just come up with a group restaurant dinner!
Large group dinners are good for the person who suits them, and terrible for everyone else. They are organized by cowards who want to get all their friends together without throwing a party. Since they are often arranged to celebrate special occasions, they are most likely socially obligatory. Here’s how to survive them.
Come early
Yes, delay this event even longer. Come early and grab a drink (or soda) from the bar, and if friends come, ask them to come with you. This way you can get your ideal roommates together at the table before everyone sits down.
The problem with group placement is that while everyone wants to sit next to the “host” or guest of honor, they are only allowed to be so aggressive about it. Decorum requires no one to argue openly about good seating. But you can do without propriety if everyone thinks you have some sort of right to good seats, because you are already in conversation with the guest of honor and want to continue. You established your seniority by showing up early for work.
People are afraid to protest against an unfair situation if it seems like a natural order. Our simple monkey brain is suitable for everyone who is fighting for limited resources, but not in order to take resources from the one who saved them and distribute them equally. This is how the ruling classes hold us back, and this is how you get a good seat.
Also, this is how you apply social lubrication before the most difficult time of the evening, when everyone is sitting at an empty table. So if you find yourself around the wrong people, at least you will become less shy.
Share it all
Splitting up any restaurant bill is fraught. Are you splitting it equally for simplicity, annoying staff with separate checks, or trying to calculate taxes and tips for everyone? The larger the group, the less you can assume that everyone has enough money for lunch or that everyone can “find each other next time.”
Group dinners at the restaurant often coincide with birthday dinners. This is a double evil. It is generally accepted etiquette that the birthday person should not pay for food, even if they choose a trendy restaurant. Such a person does not deserve more birthdays, but we cannot give you advice on organizing them. We can only help you mitigate your financial damage.
Everyone will be forced to split the bill, so share the food. Order wines on the table, divide snacks, divide first courses. Go full family style. Then the only real way to split the bill is equally. It won’t be easy – some people will insist on ordering their drinks separately from wine – but it will eliminate one stage of financial negotiation. And you can openly suggest this at the beginning of the meal – both the meal sharing and the bill sharing – so everyone knows what’s next. Even if the restaurant isn’t usually a family run restaurant, just pitch the idea and see if you can come up with a happy agreement ahead of time.
Play a game
Even if you’ve found a good place and dealt with the impending financial crisis, dinner conversation can be awkward. People can go to their phones, and you know that once one person does it, everyone else will do the same, and now it will be much more difficult to start the conversation again. Well, people come up with crappy games out of awkward situations.
First, if you feel like someone is about to check their phone, say, “Time to call!” and let them check everything at once. (A friend of a friend saw Leonardo DiCaprio do this once.) Then announce the game: “Okay, in two minutes we should all share the most interesting thing we’ve seen on our phones.” Or, “When we’re done, I want to see the funniest picture you’ve all saved to your phone.” It’s silly and a little awkward! But it turns phones from a distraction to a conversation starter. Everyone has something funny or interesting on their phone. And now you have a few new things to start talking about – things that people have just chosen because of their potential interest.
You can combine this with one of our favorite group dinner tricks: the last bite of food contest . The person who has the funniest thing on their phone gets the last Spanakopita.
Skip it
Let’s say your good friend invites you to a big group lunch and you really feel bad about giving it up. Dont be upset! Choose another date to have a drink with them, or have a one-on-one dinner. And know that by not participating, you have cut down on the group dinner by making it more bearable for everyone else.
You can even go crazy and offer to spend. Turn it into lunch. Ask yourself a whole new set of problems. Until he counts 11 checks after spending an hour with someone’s cousin.