Eating Voyeur
May 21, 2004
I like watching the woman eat ever since our first date at Cow’s and at a shitty bubble tea place. You can tell a lot about a person from the way they eat. The woman, for example, eats quite intently but at the same time, her eyes wander all over the place and she likes to alternate when eating. A bite of this, a nibble of that, a sip of that. Her eating style is like a complicated ballet routine which looks random but in fact it’s so very coordinated. It describes her personality fairly well I think.
I on the other hand, am very focussed when eating. I will eat all the vegetables/salad first. I will then eat the glucose rich food (the rice, noodle, or bread). I will eat small bites of the main course (meat, seafood) alongside the glucose rich food but I will save the majority of it for the end. After all the food has been eaten, I will then consume the soup. It’s very structured, conservative, and it’s a pattern I’ve noticed since I was about 11. It describes me very well too.
I can’t speak for the woman but for myself – everything is black and white for me. The salad is salad. The rice is rice. I am right. I am wrong. You should do this, she should do that. There is no gray area. I am very predictable according to my friends. I’m rather conservative for a 23 year old too – I believe and uphold in many old fashioned values I guess.
Now, as I’m writing this, I’m deviating from my normal eating habits. I have in front of me half a honeydew melon. Normally, I would cut it into perfectly equal slices and consume the fruit from right to left. Today, I just pulled out a spoon and I literally told myself to “dig in”. I guess everyone’s entitled to a wild side.
