FCN BC08 - C: Menu

Have you ever been to a restaurant with a member of the fair sex? I am asking this question, of course, to our male readers because most, if not all, of the female members of the faithful few have been to a restaurant. I know this because I took them there and paid the bill. That makes me a successful male - because I took many females to several restaurants and paid the bill. The fact that I have never been able to sustain several successive restaurant visits with one particular person or pay any bill that exceeds $15.00 is not relevant. The McDonalds in Wal-Mart can be a classy date. So can the one in Target.

As a guy, I know how to order food efficiently. Before going into the restaurant, I think about what I want to eat. With that image firmly pressed into my mind, I look at the menu and look for the thing that most closely approximates it. Then I order it, unless I see a cow-based product like hamburger, beef or steak, in which case I order that. It is almost always the case that the food image I have in my mind is a cow-based product, but if it isn't (maybe I had hamburger every day for the last month), the image of the cow meat will enter my head and push out whatever else I was thinking of. Sometimes the cow meat will push out the other image even when I have eaten hamburger every day for the last month. Maybe that's why I end up eating so much hamburger...

If there are several cow-based products on the menu, ties are broken by price. I will always choose the cheaper item. Once I tried to impress a date by purchasing the more expensive cow-based food product. It broke the bank and I had to ask her to cover the tip. Very tacky. Now I always order from the cheap side.

My menu analyzing skills can be applied very quickly. I can go from "hi how are you?" to "that'll be out in five minutes" in a jiffy. And the speed gives me extra time to ogle the waitress.

Females approach the menu with the concern of a mother bear and the intensity of a broken light bulb. They are very concerned about getting the order right, but don't invest the appropriate energy to achieve that end. They think that the meal they are about to order will set the foundation for their afternoon and that if their afternoon goes poorly they may never get out of the rut and will have bad days for the rest of their lives. Ordering the stir fry may upset the careful balance of their lives and render them culinarily destitute -- a situation analogous to an unsolvable bad hair day in your stomach. Imagine that for perpetuity -- a period of time that has no end -- and most females might as well be at the altar beneath an arbor as in front of a menu.

Women are concerned about fat content, how the order will appear to their date, cost, aesthetics and taste - in that order.

The fat content needs to be low in order to impress all the other women of the female's nutrition consciousness. No other measures of nutrition matter.

The food needs to appear reasonable and feminine to the date. If a woman orders the 12 oz. Sirloin while the guy gets the 8 oz. Boubon Street, the female has out manned the man. Not good. Most men see this as an afront to their masculinity and will be pressured into order progressively more expensive menu items. This makes the man uncomfortable and increases the odds that the woman will not be invited out on any future dates.

The order should be expensive. At least as expensive as the guy's meal. This shows that the woman is worth something and tests the guys willingness and ability to pay. Guys who cannot pay for expensive fast food items are not worth continued dating. Females should consider starting with the most expensive menu item and working their way down to a menu item they like. CAUTION: Avoid the temptation to supersize. Supersizing violates the fat content warning.

The food needs to look good. This has as much to do with the female's appetite as anything else. I really don't understand it.

The food needs to taste good. This is the least important criterion.

The female approaches the menu tentatively, reading through the entire document to glean all available information. The female thinks through each of the criteria, often maintaining a boistrous conversation with her date. She will eliminate options tentatively. New realizations and thoughts about the menu will cause her to reconsider her previous eliminations. Sometimes she will start over and reevaluate all the choices, but she will never tell anyone else what she is doing. Inquiries into her selection process are an afront to her judgment and are met with offense.

The female is like the BCS - no one knows how she makes her rankings.