One lump or two?
We got back in late February from a week's vacation in Nashville, TN. It's a surprising city: part grown-up and part ... something else, but it's making an attempt to outgrow its previous incarnations, and for that I am impressed.
Contextually, I'm no longer "from" the South. While I was raised in Arkansas, I spent the better part of a decade in Connecticut (where I also earned my bachelor's degree) in my mid-20's, and now I've been in the Pac Northwest for going-on-a-decade, and between those two sojourns I've lost most of my Southern accent and *all* of my Southern weirdness. (Well, maybe not *all.* I'll muse some other time on the Southern culture and its gothic tendrils.)
Pretty much all up and down the West Coast, it's not remarkable to be anything different from "straight." In Oregon, where I currently reside, a same-sex couple can be Mostly Married, at least in the state. (The Feds still discriminate against same-sex couples, though, so all you Homophobes can at least celebrate that.) I can kiss my wife (married in Toronto in 2004, so yes, I can call her my 'wife,' I have the marriage license to prove it -- but then, we'd also qualify as common law spouses after nine years together, yes?) in public and hold her hand, and if anyone looks twice at us, I'm not aware of it. When we dine out, there's never any question about whether or not we are "together;" we act and behave just like any other married couple at any other table in any other restaurant in any other city or state. I can't remember the last time I was asked "separate checks?" by a local server.
Then comes a visit to Nashville. Every single establishment, save one (which was in the most progressive part of town and the most sustainably modeled -- local, organically-provenanced food), inquired as to the number of checks at our Table of Two.
Really? I'm thunderstruck. Sure, we weren't macking on each other, tongues in ears or throats, but we touched and held hands. Hell, we even fed each other off our plates. On more than one occasion we told the server we were going to share a dish. We wear matching wedding bands, since, you know, that's what married people usually do. So why the assumption that we might not be paying together?
Some optimistic, idealist reader out there is going to say, "Oh, now, come on. It's easier to inquire as to how many checks than to assume one." And I'll agree with you. In which case, the server with Any Damn Clue will ask "Same check?" NOT the "Two checks?" we got almost every single time we dined out.
Pretend, for a moment, that you go out to eat with your significant other and you are not gay. Or paint this example with any random male and female dining together. Whether they are in a couple or not, how will the server ask about the way the check should be totaled? He or she will almost universally ask -- "Same check?" Or "One check?" Because gods forbid you suggest two people Might Be Gay and Paying on the Same Check when in fact they are Straight! <gasp! choke!> Quelle horreur! The affront! The slur! To suggest someone is more than merely friends, to suggest they are ... gay.
Please.
I challenge anyone to test this hypothesis: that American Culture, especially from Fresno east to NYC, and maybe even beyond, will make the Blind, Bland, Boob assumption that two people of the same gender dining out will not be a couple. Because heaven forbid you call someone GAY when they aren't.
This kind of blinkered-thinking and the inherent disrespect in conveys makes me want to crack some heads. Will that be Two Lumps? Or just One?