Why I Hate Rectangular Tables

Now that's likely a phobia you haven't heard before.  Oh, don't get me wrong.  I don't break out into hives or convulsions at the sight of such a table.

But, if I'm a social setting with more than four people at a table of this size, I am completely lost.  Call me an idiot.

Idiot.  I just read your line.

Indeed, if it is four people or less at a rectangular table, I'm fine.  Of course, you're better off at a square table.  But, as long as it's a quartet or less, the size and shape of the table is really immaterial.

This is all very much about who I am and how I view myself.  Self-esteem tied completely to furniture dimensions.

Do crowds scare me?  Absolutely not.  Put me in front of a large group and it's a business setting.  I'm clever, coherent, and borderline compelling.  I have zero issues of speaking or being myself when it comes to my career and all things attached to it.

But, socially?  The issues are growing as I get older.  Personally, I prefer now to spend more time with fewer folks in a more intimate setting when it's more about a few of us and less about a lot of them.  Once again, I'm good with four or less people.  I can command part of the conversation easily in that size of a crowd.  And, hence, the square dining table can be pure heaven for me.  Again, I can be clever, coherent, and borderline compelling.

Four or more at a rectangular table?  I am sunk.  Every manner that was drummed into my head as a kid bobs to the surface of my psyche.  I suddenly find myself as inferior to a majority of the people at the table.  And I wind up spending the evening in my own stone cold silence.  Indeed, I might argue that one of the main reasons why I started this blog over seven years ago was because it was the only way I could actually say something to more than four people at one time.

Call me weird.

Weird.  Sorry, I read your line again.

I've never verbalized this quirk until now.  And it all became extremely noticeable in the past two months when I experienced the opposite ends of this bi-polar conundrum.  

I go to lunch with a good friend and we are with two veteran television writers who have credits longer than your sleeve.  I've never met them before.  Yet, I had a wonderful time.  Yes, part of this was business-related so that gregarious mode of Len did kick in.  But, there was also a social element and the dialogue was terrific.

Yes, I was clever, coherent, and borderline compelling.  

Four people at a square table.

Shortly thereafter, I am in a social setting.  Five friends and former business associates in a restaurant.  At a rectangular table.  I know them all and have been totally comfortable with all of them in smaller venues.

I was completely miserable.  Indeed, I might as well have not been there.  

Part of the challenge, I will admit, is physical.  At any restaurant table, regardless of the size, I have to sit on the end.  Most preferably the end that allows me to stretch my leg out so it won't stiffen up over the course of two or more hours of yakking it up.   And that's where I was on this evening.

On the end and completely lost.  

I found myself being able to have a clever, coherent, and borderline compelling conversation with the person across from me.  No issue.  But, as I discerned over many such social settings, I find that the table conversation is ultimately controlled by the two people sitting in the middle.  Everything spins off that.  So you have to take your best shots at getting into their conversation if you want to participate at all.  Very similar to a moving jump rope.

PS, I wasn't very good at jump roping either.

Of course, as I battle for any portion of the dialogue, the parental voices in my head sound out like air raid sirens.

"You're in a restaurant.  Don't yell."

Yes, Mom.  Yes, Dad.

So I sit silently and watch the Dodger game unfold on my At Bat phone app.  As for the two on the opposite end of the rectangular table, I'd love to speak with them.  But, they might as well be on the dwarf planet of Pluto.

If only these folks at a dreaded rectangular table could know....

I am clever, coherent, and borderline compelling.  Invite me in a smaller crowd.  You'll find out.

And, oh, yes, I'd like a square table, please.

Dinner last night:  Vegetable stir fry.