Questions

If you reach either awkward silences or any awkwardness at all do you take that as a sign the date isn’t going well?

I just finished a book and it got me thinking about this. What do you think?

I could not understand why I'm being told I'm not being "cultural" enough as a kid. Sit straight, legs down. Etc.

Truth be told, when you're yelled at for not sitting right in a way that feels life threatening, it only makes your body involuntarily curl up and put your feet up again. That's just fear response.

Well that's my oldest memory of eating food, a daily occurrence.

But then you do learn to sit straight but you chew really really really fast. And you have old people tell you SLOW DOWN, MY DOCTOR TOLD ME TO CHEW SLOWLY, IT IS HEALTHIER.

I assume that means, when they were younger they lived through the same shit.

And then i would hear on podcasts how chewing slowly makes us digest food better. So? Self torment. Just move like a robot. Sudden movements and pauses. Of course i am exaggerating. And i have to, because i am fully certain that more people in the world do a degree of this than not.

And that is the difference between eating and devouring: baseline stress levels. You think you're fine. You truly do. But your body does not.

And, by the way, i really really hope someone will listen to this piece of advice: Never say "I'm fine" if you have even a smallest, quantum sized doubt that you are.

If you do, we cannot be friends. But you are allowed to say "i just don't know, i do not feel at ease."

Not because i haven't figured it out already. But because it is a lie and is harmful to both parties.

But back to the main topic. I LOATHE devouring food greedily. It disgusts me. As soon as i take a bite too huge, i lose appetite, i remember my dad and his friends devouring foodstuff like pigs. Feeling a sense of disgust is good, feel as much of it as you can to train your body not to repeat it. But it isn't not enough, you also need honesty.

For many years i struggled to be different. Now, i am relaxed and perfectly doing the "cultural" thing they all tried to mimic and failed. Just relax and slowly, quietly eat your biologically blessed food.