The first time I went, with a girl, I ordered a bottle of wine. Usually I pass this task off to someone else I’m eating with who’s more eager/knowledgable, and I accept the consequences when he/she picks something absurdly expensive. Well this girl had no interest in choosing the wine, so I picked a cheap wine off the menu. Later the waiter brought out the wine to do the whole ritual thing. I always look a bit askance at the person I’m eating with who does the whole ritual thing, because it rings very false to me. First off, you’re supposed to tell if the wine is corked just by the smell when it’s opened. You can tell it’s what you ordered by looking at the label. The rest has no point, because you can’t send it back just for not liking it. The ritual is not something intuitive that a child could understand. Of course it’s learned, but to the extent that it’s practiced, it seems people are eager to take this on to show that they’re acceptable adults. Affecting sophistication is not something that fits in with my persona. My solution? When the wine was poured in my cup, after acknowledging the label and looking at the cork with great interest, I swirled it, smelled it, and then tasted it, but I made sure to have a ridiculous look on my face the whole time which said: I’m a retard for doing this because it makes no sense. This is not an optimal solution, but it was the best I could come up with at the time. The girl did not make out with me later, and who knows why?
Some people take socialization without making funny faces as maturity and others win noble prizes and don’t wash their hands after they pee out of principle.
For the latter group, “you’re just an ordinary person” is a diss that’s apt here.
