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, the 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 diners 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 diners, 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 cackling wildly 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 me and my fellow diners.

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.

In the wake of any reality show, contestants come forward to proclaim that the bad behavior we saw wasn’t the “real” them and that the editors snipped here and cut there to make them look bad.

“Anyone who knows me knows that’s not what I’m really like,” they will say.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet BIG BROTHER’s Lydia. And more importantly, meet her in unedited, live-feed footage from earlier this week. (Please be warned that the clip is uncensored and definitely not safe for work!)

NOTE: Embedding has been disabled on this, so click here.

Now, it’s only fair to say that Lydia is not the first person to have gotten into screaming matches with her fellow housemates this season, and this fight may not even be the worst. (That “honor” might well go to the Chima/Russel smackdown from several weeks back.)

But it’s stunning to me that people who know that they are not only on television (where they can point the finger at editors) but also on 24-hour live feeds, where their every action is studied and critiqued by fans with too much time on their hands, would allow themselves to be seen in this light.

Chima call Russell a “terrorist”. Several of the houseguests were heard dropping the f-bomb of gay slurs. Even Ronnie, who at first came off as the quiet, nerdy type, morphed into the mouse that roared (and lied) as time went on.

 CBS actually does seem to edit things in such a way that people do not come across as they actually are, and, ironically, the houseguests TVselves are sanitized as opposed to being dragged through the mud. In other words: If you shake your head at what you see on screen three times a week, trust me when I say a quick trip to youtube or the live feeds will leave your jaw hitting the floor.

Part of the problem, of course, lies in the fact that just like all other aspects of television, reality shows have become more and more reliant on combustible personalities. Strategy and game play are no longer enough. Just as hockey fans want to see blood on the ice, reality shows now most provide viewers with catfights and explosive confrontations. Thus, you get casts such as this season’s group of BIG BROTHER housemates who are, generally speaking, a mostly unlikeable lot with the possible exception of Jordan.

But hey, the networks are a business and they give us what we want to see… right?

So I had a roommate once who I could not stand. But since my other roommates were friends with her, I bit my tongue and said nothing when she moved in. However, after her stealing my stuff, eating my food constantly — once right in front of me —  and yelling at me when she was drunk, I began to loose my cool. Did I mention that she NEVER paid her rent or utilities? Our landlord almost took us all to court because of her. She ended up moving out and told everyone it was because of me and not because she was spending all of her money on beer and meth. She tried to get my little sister (who is 17) involved with it and when she moved out, she took a lot of our stuff that wasn\’t hers to take. Not only that, but she caused a girl to get beat up by three guys and the victim’s twin sister by blabbing about something she wasn’t supposed to. She’s in my living room right now with my other roommate and every time she laughs, I want to put my fist between her front teeth. I cranked my music up and I can still hear here.. but I don’t need another reason to go back to anger therapy!