It's Not My Fault, It's Not My Fault...
...it's not my fault.I'm still working on this one. If I go to a restaurant, even if I didn't pick the restaurant (but especially if I did choose), and Fearless Husband or Dear Friend or whoever I'm with doesn't care for the food, I get tied up inside. I feel like it's my fault whoever I'm with didn't enjoy his or her meal, and I feel guilty. I feel like I have reparations to make, apologies to extend...I'm sooooooooo sorry!
FH and I went out to lunch today. The restaurant we'd chosen (the yakiniku restaurant I'd gone to with Miyuki on Saturday, which I knew he'd love) turned out to be closed for some sort of renovations, so I pointed the car towards town. FH was hungry, and he was hungry right now. As most women know, a hungry man tends to be a cranky and irrational man. So, I gave him the options (places that I knew were restaurants--an issue since neither of us reads Japanese, places where I knew we could park easily, and places which lay in the direction we were currently traveling) which included a family-style, medium-price Japanese chain restaurant called Yumian (or maybe Yu Mi An, I dunno. I pronounce it completely incorrectly as "Yummy Ann", but hey, that's how I remembered it in the first place.) He chose the latter, probably because it was about 50 yards away when I gave him the list from which to choose. I'd been there before, but he had not.
I loved my lunch, which included their fresh-made-this-morning homemade tofu (really, unless you've tried it, you don't know what you are missing!) and probably the strongest, thickest iced coffee I've ever had. FH didn't particularly care for most of his lunch, which included about ten different things to taste.
Now, just to recap--FH chose the restaurant. He ordered his own food, from a menu with lovely color photographs to let one see exactly what one is ordering. And when I expressed concern that he might not like what he'd chosen, he assured me that he was very pleased for the experience and adventure of trying all the new foods, even if he wouldn't be ordering most of it again. And he meant it. (Yes, I love this man!)
He did eat a good portion of what he ordered, and neither of us is in any danger of wasting away any time soon. (Hell, we're the ones you want with you if you are stranded on a desert isle and decide to turn to cannibalism...one of my thighs could sustain a small village!)
Intellectually, I know all of the above. But it was still hard to leave it alone, to walk away pleased that I'd had a good meal and we'd both had a new adventure. I wanted to apologize to him profusely, and to hurry home and prepare something that I know he likes, to "make it all better."
But I did it. I left it alone and didn't apologize. Hopefully, it will get easier to ignore the irrational guilt. And maybe, one day, it will go away altogether.
posted by Carolie @ 11:15 PM
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