The People At The Next Table

At various points in the evening, practically everyone in the mid-sized, mid-town restaurant turned to look at the woman and her companions. Not because they were particularly well-dressed or unusually attractive, especially by Manhattan standards. But when the overly-made-up blonde threw back her head to laugh, it was a little too loud; and every few minutes, a cellphone belonging to one of her companions would emit a jarringly loud ring, inevitably triggering an extended conversation easily overheard by anyone within a three-table vicinity.

Even the coldest of winds blowing outside the restaurant on that blustery winter night couldn’t match the chill of the glares directed toward the woman and her companions, who remained either blissfully oblivious to the level of annoyance their behavior was causing or, as seemed increasingly likely, didn’t care in the least.

Despite my best efforts, their boisterous conduct eventually managed to impact my own mood and evening, leading me to join my fellow diners in shooting icy glares at the partying table to absolutely no avail.

I left the restaurant with a hunger for a smackdown that went unfulfilled.

Fastforward a week or two. Another restaurant, another racous group of patrons, another group of neighboring tables being disturbed by peals of loud laughter and excited exclamations.

This time, I was seated much closer to the action… right in the middle of it, in fact. I’d been out for drinks with friends and we’d decided to stop in one of our favorite restaurants for something to eat. Thanks to the good time already in progress — not to mention several rounds of cocktails — we had unwittingly become “those people.”

We were now the people at the next table.

The ones who had annoyed me only a week earlier with their loud conversation and fun-fueled frolicking. We were guffawing at our own jokes as we drunk dialed a friend and tweeted every thought that entered our alcohol-soaked brains.

And never did it occur to us that we’d become Those People, at least not until it was much too late and the cold glares I’d reserved for others were now being directed toward my band of very merry men.

Like many who wind up on the receiving end of looks that could, but don’t, kill, it wasn’t our intention to disturb anyone. And had we been able to step outside ourselves and witness the scene from another perspective, I’d like to think we’d have been mortified… or at least mollified.

But the next time you’re in a situation where a tableful of diners are having a little more fun than you might like them to be having, instead of looking upon them with anger, smile and remember that almost every single one of us has been, at one point or another, in their place.

We’ve all been the people at the next table.