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If you’re as fast an eater as I am, there’s a certain competition that goes on in the back of your mind when you’re eating with someone else.
An example: How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? Well, when I’m alone, it takes about twenty-four and then one killer bite. Sit me down with a few other girls, start them each with the same brand of lollipop, and it’s a different case. Algebraically, I’d say it takes however many the next girl licks, plus two. And as I lick this Tootsie Pop, I not only take significant effort to lick as slowly as the others; every slowness race involves matching lick coverage or bite size, and that requires constant peripheral focus.
And I have to completely focus the entire time, or things get out of control.
One time I lost focus on my eating tempo while at lunch with a group of friends. Our orders arrived, and I immediately picked up my delicious apple-smoked bacon and mashed potato burger. I watched my portion get smaller and smaller as I took each bite with carefree ease. And when I finished the burger, I ate my side salad. I was game for dessert. When I finally took a look around the table, I noticed that all the men who tackled identical burgers were sickly full, painfully struggling to finish. It was sadistic entertainment for everyone else; they took pictures of those boys’ saucy cheeks, bulging with burger grit I could swallow in five seconds. I couldn’t laugh; I felt a deep, tender envy. I wish I were as pathetic, because I should be trying to be a lady, right? If I were trying, you couldn’t tell now. I treated the occasion so casually that I forgot my original intention, which was to cut the pound-burger in half and save one side for dinner, because I didn’t want to eat the whole helping in one sitting.
It counts as a health concern, but I more insistently didn’t want to be seen eating the whole helping in one sitting. The attention was embarrassing! Every comment was trying so desperately to be nice. “It’s impressive, really,” Mallory assured me. “I’m always concerned that I can’t finish dinner on dates, and I want to eat everything the guy’s paid for.” I can only imagine the deep trouble that causes her dates. They probably cry at night, wishing she’d eaten that last biscuit.
May I compare my theoretical experience, Mal?
I’m sitting across the table from a majestically beautiful man, and the wench heaves our plates onto the table. My man smiles smugly at my plate and taunts me, challenging my ability to finish, judging by my gut size. I retort, and raise the golden confection to my face, bite through layers of sweet bun, juicy beef and tender potato, returning the grin with lips and eyes closed, enraptured. The warmth of the burger slides past the sensors and down the hatch in a beautiful massage, and I tear a little bit at the corners of my eyes. After I digest the heap, I open my eyelids once again to find my hands bare and shiny with oils and juices, and my plate clean. I look across the table, and his burger is practically untouched in comparison, and his once smug smile at me has turned to a gaping expression of unimpressed terror. Tension, silence
“Need a little help there, dude?” I ask, but I know he doesn’t find it funny.
Wait, does he find it funny? That’s where my vision turns to blur.
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