I’m with F at a cozy restaurant. A la Z Cuisine. We are at a long table for ten or so, “family style,” seated across from each other. I am engaging a diner at the table next to / behind us, in banter. I don’t know the fellow, but we are cutting up, laughing. It is friendly and harmless. F glowers at me. “That is totally inappropriate!” he hisses at me. “Huh?” I reply, confused. “What’s inappropriate?”
“You laughing out loud, and joking around like that in a fine establishment like this!” It seems not to be jealousy so much as concern that other diners won’t approve of my “uncouth” behavior. I feel that F is trying to control my behavior, but I’m having none of it. I’m not angry, nor am I defensive, I simply will not bow to F’s concerns, concerns that seem utterly superficial to me. “F,” I say, “it’s OK. What I do or say is nobody’s business but my own!’ I feel calm, filled with good humor.
But F gets angrier. “It does, too, matter what these people think!” he retorts. “You are being too loud and boisterous!” I look around. No one is paying any attention to me. “F, no one is paying the least bit of attention! I’m not going to stop kibitzing!” I say with a smile. F is livid. “Fine!” he hisses. He gets up and goes to sit at the kibitzer’s table, in a seat directly behind me. He is in the midst of diners who are calm, quiet and proper. I’m surprised, but bemused, at how worked up F has gotten.