Part 3

And One More Thing...; A Mother's Advice on Life, Love, and Lipstick
by Joan Caraganis Jakobson

(Page 3 of 3)

And what if I sit next to someone who doesn't want to discuss anything?

Occasionally, you will find yourself at a dinner party, haplessly trying to make conversation with a man who thinks you exist only to draw him out. Aman who-after you have inquired about his job, where his children go to school, what he thinks about the latest political scandal, and his favorite vacation spots-asks you nothing about yourself. If you're not asking, they're not talking. A man who, if you had a sudden heart attack and slid off your chair and onto the floor, would never notice. A man who will finally turn to you at the end of the evening and pose the thought-provoking question: "Are you sure this coffee is decaf ?" If you just heard the hostess mention to another guest that she ran out of decaf that morning, you have my permission to smile and say, "Oh, yes, it's decaf."

When I was younger, I thought there was no worse fate than sitting next to a woman at dinner, but after the decaf guy and some of the other men I've encountered, give me a woman any time. They will nod sympathetically when I explain that I remove my contact lenses and my nail polish before I weigh myself. Women are also more likely to initiate a conversation by asking, "Do you know what I hate?" And that's a much more intriguing conversation starter than coffee.

I once sat between two men at a dinner party and began a political discussion with the person on my right. His views were quite extreme, not to say wacko and hateful. He was not the best listener in the world and insisted upon repeating his opinions several times, at a deliberately slow pace, as if I were too slow to comprehend anything said quickly. After twenty minutes of this, I turned to the attractive man on my left, whom I had met just an hour before, and said, "I'm going to shoot myself if I have to talk to my other dinner partner much longer." He answered, "I'd love to help you out but I'm having a few problems myself with the woman on my other side. Sorry." I reluctantly returned to my first partner, attempting to remember the relaxation exercises I had learned years before in a yoga class. Just as I was trying to figure out how to breathe in through my left nostril and out through my right without anyone thinking I was very odd, the man on my left tapped my arm and said, as I turned to him, "Okay, since the woman on my left is no longer speaking to me, I'm all yours." The man on my left more than made up for his counterpart on my right. No matter how unpromising a situation seems at the beginning, it's possible to have a happy and gratifying ending.

My husband is always quick to remind me that not every woman at a dinner party is a combination of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Katie Couric. He once sat beside a beautiful, bright, and chatty woman who informed him during the soup course that she had just completed a course in martial arts that she had taken after being mugged. She then offered that if any man ever so much as touched her again, he'd better take his best shot because she'd kill him in a flash with her newfound skills. Unfortunately, during the course of this exchange, my husband developed a cramp in his leg, which was wedged beneath a rather crowded table. In his attempt to straighten it out and ease the pain, he grew most apprehensive about inadvertently touching his dinner partner's foot. He was certain he'd be dead by dessert. In spite of the possibility of landing just such a loser for a dinner partner, switching place cards at dinner parties, without your hostess's approval, is tantamount to, if not worse than, grand-theft her guests. If you don't like your dinner partners, get over it. Eleven o'clock eventually comes around.

What do you think of a hostess who invites you for dinner and then orders takeout?

If you are giving a big cocktail party, or having more than eight guests for dinner, I would recommend takeout. You don't want to spend all your time in the kitchen, away from your guests, if you can avoid it. Nobody notices or cares where the food originated. The guests and conversation are what people take away and remember from a party, not the food.

I have also learned, from years of parties that I have given and those that I've attended, that the food that people enjoy is straightforward and uncomplicated, like chicken pot pie or meat loaf and mashed potatoes. If you can't afford to order out, give the party with a friend and split the expenses.

The difficult part of being a hostess is folding the napkins, making sure that each guest-even the one you don't particularly like but had to invite anyway-is involved in conversation, and washing the dishes. The gratifying part is that the hostess is in charge and makes all the decisions, including what she serves. If she wants to order take-out food and serve it on her grandmother's china and pretend she made everything from scratch, it's her choice. Dinner parties are not about the honor system.

Copyright © 2005 by Joan Jakobson

About the Author

Joan Jakobson has written the "Hers" column for the New York Times Sunday magazine, the "My Turn" column in Newsweek, the "Social Graces" column for Town & Country, and the "On My Mind" column for Cosmopolitan. Her articles have also appeared in Family Circle, New York, Bergdorf Goodman Magazine, Civilization, Quest, and New York Social Diary. She has a daughter and son, and six stepchildren. She lives with her husband in New York City.