Pet Peeve: Same Side Boothers

We've all seen it. We're at a nice restaurant like Bojangles or the Waffle House (those are nice, right?), and there is a couple there "enjoying" their own fried, greasy, delicious meal before it comes back to bite them in approximately twelve hours. But this couple isn't sitting normally in their booth, with one person on either side. No, this couple has made the incredibly poor choice of having both individuals share the same side of the booth.

No matter how much fun they think they're having, they're not. They're just not.

What those old people pictured above are doing is being fools. Old, loveable, apparently drunk fools. How can they be properly partaking in their meal if they insist upon using only half as much booth as they were given? Look at them, they're crowded in there like two crowded people being crowded (I'm still working on my similes). And the question that should immediately come to mind is: Why?

I've heard the arguments. And they are all untrue. Better conversation? False, it is much easier to have a conversation when you're looking directly at the person with whom you are conversing, instead of having to crane your neck like the Finding Nemo seagulls or just talking straight in front of you at nothing. Physical intimacy? If you're so concerned with being close to another person, go to any club in New York City and you will never again feel the need for that kind of togetherness. And what's wrong with footsie (I know what footsie is only because it was explained to me by a sinful friend, mom)? If the only way you can think of to be close with your significant other is to have your shoulder against theirs, you may need counseling.

"We are having so much more fun than those old people from before!"

The most logical argument for the Same Side Boothers (or as they shall henceforth be know, Satan's Sitters) that I've come up with is that it's not for them, it's for us. They sit uncomfortably, looking at the empty booth and bumping their fork elbow with their partner's knife elbow (or both knife elbows if one is a lefty) not because they enjoy it, but because they know we're watching and they want to show us how great their relationship is. But we see them. We see them and we hate them. We hate them with a passion that burns with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.

Look at them over there, pretending to be happy. It makes me sick.

So the problem may not be foolishness, but a misguided idea that the general populace cares whether or not you're in a good relationship. Because we don't. So quit it.