Noisy fellow patron annoys diner
Dear Carolyn: Last eve I sat down for a quick bite at a nearby casual restaurant. It had been a long and hard day – I’d just finished a triathlon – and I was looking forward to relaxing after all the stress and hard effort. It was not to be. From the moment I sat down till I left as quickly as possible, 45 minutes later, a nearby diner was coughing and clearing his throat, incessantly and loudly. I found it impossible to relax and enjoy my meal.
My partner thinks I’m being too impatient and unforgiving of a stranger’s difficulty. I understand we all have physical issues from time to time – but at some point, should a diner not continue to interrupt everyone else’s meals with his issue? Perhaps excuse himself and relieve the problem in the bathroom or elsewhere out of earshot? And if the throatchallenged diner is oblivious to his/her impact on others, should not a restaurant employee gently intervene and ask the diner if they may assist in some way, hoping that will awake the diner to that impact? – Sore Diner
Sore Diner: I’m not concerned with your patience so much as I am with your pragmatism.
There are few nuisances that drain our compassion faster than someone else’s persistent throat-clearing, so I’m sympathetic – and bonus, these days, every public cough comes with a side of foreboding, so the distraction power is multiplied.
But while it might have been thoughtful of the coughing guy to get his dinner to go, his staying to enjoy his dinner might also have been nothing less than a quality-of-life matter. If he struggles with an environmental allergy, say, then is he never again to sit at a table in public, lest it impinge on your chance to relax?
Everyone knows humans are imperfect. Lip-service accomplished there. But we’re less quick to embrace the corollary to that truth, which is that mingling with other humans means we get all the annoying stuff they bring with them, too – ours and theirs - to the extent that it might be more useful to bask in the miracle of all the dining experiences we’ve had that tanked by someone’s audible deviations from norms.
This is a hard social muscle to reach, especially in our moment of fear, loathing and deliberate public provocations, but it’s one worth strengthening. And if you’re interested in shaking off last night’s incident and thinking the most of people, then, here’s your justification.
If you’re also looking for an answer toward the next time something like this (inevitably) happens, then learn to ask yourself in the moment who the best person is to solve your problem. A guy with a cough? You have no say in what he does. The restaurant? They’re the ones motivated to please you, so asking to be reseated is absolutely reasonable – and so is having your order packaged to go if there’s no option on the premises to get away from the noise.
But even then, getting that done relies entirely on your initiative – so, as always, you’re the one who needs to be prepared to manage your own experiences. And your expectations of them, and any disappointments in them after the fact.