Volume 4, Entry 47: Social Dining

Special meals need neither turkey nor palm trees

It’s a well-established fact that I hate In-N-Out Burger.

No matter that it isn’t true—everyone claims it anyway. I could host a live stream of me wolfing down a dozen undersized sandwiches and limp fries for an hour, and I’d still be told I hate In-N-Out.

Oh, whoops—I did it right there, didn’t I? I became the character; I insulted the iconic California chain in a way I wouldn’t otherwise. It’s hard not to! I mean, yeah, their burgers are pretty small, and no, their fries aren’t special, but I hold nothing against them. I actively enjoy eating a burger from In-N-Out (at home, of course, not in their too-loud lobbies). If I didn’t have to park in their never-big-enough lots or wait in a traffic-crippling drive-thru line that actively blocks customers from visiting nearby establishments, I’d eat there regularly.

So why do people believe I hate In-N-Out?

Because I readily admit I prefer Five Guys.

I’m pretty sure the question got posed to me in 2018. Someone asked if I liked In-N-Out, and instead of saying, “Yes, but they’re not my favorite”, I said “I prefer Five Guys”. Those four words, it turned out, are fightin’ words in these here parts. I was the ground beef equivalent of a Lakers fan in Sacramento: a traitor to my people.

I’d love to wholly blame others for furthering this false dichotomy, teaching all of us the valuable lesson that a person can like more than one thing, but I definitely lean into the heel turn. It’s not my fault that stating facts about In-N-Out casts them in a bad light. Maybe I didn’t have to grow a mustache just to twirl the damn thing, but it was fun to needle people and playfully pick at something they loved. The Joker might be insane, but pre-Joaquin Phoenix, at least he seemed to be having fun.

Let the palm tree people hurl low prices at me all day long; I’ll pay more for more of everything. One little burger at Five Guys fills me like two at In-N-Out. The ingredients list at Five Guys is Barnes N Noble; In-N-Out’s is a copy of The DaVinci Code at a yard sale. And the options at Five Guys beyond las hamburguesas include hot dogs and dozens of milkshake combinations. In-N-Out has strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate—but I’m sure their hot dog would be awesome if they sold one. And don’t even get me started on fries; one punch thrown, and In-N-Out is already whimpering on the mat with a massive welt on its face.

Five Guys quite famously spends zero dollars on advertising each year—I produced their only commercial in 2020—which is a bold strategy, but just like their excellent food, their marketing plan is entirely beyond the point. I don’t love Five Guys because of their superb food, intricate options, or so-crazy-it-just-might-work ad plan. I’ve never once ordered it for myself or grabbed a burger on my way back from the district office. It’s not that kind of restaurant to me.

My affection for Five Guys developed entirely independently of their excellent food and expansive menu. My preference for them is entirely emotional.

*****

I’m going to my first adult birthday party on Saturday. I’m supposed to wear all pink, which is fun; I bought the precise tie my outfit from school has been missing.

This party will take place at my friend’s house, which was a common occurrence when I was a kid. Sure, there were parties at Discovery Zone—if you know, you know—or laser tag or Kloss Park, but the average celebration was in someone’s living room. It’s not hard to figure out why: home-field advantage is real! There’s no stress over space or concerns for keeping the cake chilled. Sure, the guests leave a massive mess in their wake, but they also bring gifts and adorable photo opportunities.

I, on the other hand, did not have any birthday parties in elementary school between kindergarten and sixth grade. It wasn’t that my family neglected my birthday, of course; it was simply that we marked that occasion differently: we went out to dinner with all the important people in tow.

Most years, we landed at Olive Garden with the Walles or Stevensons. One was spent at Papa’s—Friday tradition wins on the order of precedence—while middle school saw us and the Penneys at Mike’s Diner. Even those two ages I did have parties for took place at restaurants: age five was McDonald’s, while age twelve landed at Papa’s.

The lesson was clear: special occasions are marked by meals. Promotions led to IHOP; graduations were marked at Hungry Hunter. My family went out to eat once each week for most of my young life, but birthdays and events brought friends. In high school, I was a homebody, but even then, it continued: Souliere buying us pizza after Golden Empire or Applebee’s during Honor Choir, Mrs. Larry covering us at Denny’s during a festival, or even me spotting Joey, Musashi, and Harrison KFC after we sang the National Anthem.

Looking back on these many occasions, I rarely remember the food. These were familiar favorite places where ordering was never a challenge, but downing it all was; I understood that the food on my plate was merely the setting for coming together. I enjoyed the food, shoveling as much down as I could, but I enjoyed the company more. It was the purest social outlet I had. Dinners out were family time, both with actual relatives Uncle Tom, Aunt Anita, and Dwight and with found ones like the Boggs or the Moriokas.

Meals for moments. I have no idea if this is a suburbs thing, or a mid-westerners thing, or a child of baby boomers thing. I just know it’s definitely a thing.

My family put it on the menu.

*****

There are lots of things to dread about growing older, and we face most of them far too frequently, so I won’t offer an exhaustive list.

An underrated one, though, is the dwindling number of special occasions. You people with kids can object all you want, having built your own event-generators, but absent progeny? It’s bleak out here. They are few and far between, let me tell you. Do you really consider your 37th birthday a cause for celebration? I wouldn’t. Voices I trust have advised me not to.

What does that leave for celebratory meals, then? If my entire social world revolves around commercial dinner tables, the end of pomp and circumstance casts a dour spell.

Fortunately, the dinner and communal gathering process proves quite adaptable. When there’s an occasion to celebrate, let’s go get dinner. When there’s nothing to celebrate, and we’re bored, well, how about dinner? It’s the most convenient way to pass 100 minutes: a guy’s gotta eat, and someone else shoulders the meal prep and clean up. Sure, there’s a cost for that privilege, but bowling and laser tag aren’t free either, and nobody walks out of Noodle & Company with a broken nose.

Among the greatest changes the pandemic hastened was in my eating habits. Yes, yes, you can see that, but not this part: I’ve stopped eating out as much. A friend once shamed me for not cooking my own meals, but even a worldwide shutdown didn’t pause that: I abused DoorDash! I was a Dashpass, twice-weekly power user.

But then…I stopped. When I wasn’t ordering food to eat on the fire pit with Nathan or a pizza to split with Bradley, the food was just…food. It was expensive, which wasn’t great, but it also didn’t taste like much. I could make a mediocre omelette for less than $24 that tasted no worse than what showed up on my doorstep (or my neighbors’, depending on the Dasher’s attentiveness). Everything I bought lacked one ingredient: people. I didn’t want those restaurants’ cuisine, I wanted their booths and glasses and napkins and facilitations of two-hour discussions about partial differential equations with Neima.

I eat identical meals for breakfast and lunch every single day. People laugh at me over them, and they report me for having an eating disorder (it’s pronounced “exercise disorder”, please and thank you). But it’s just food. I enjoy flavor and texture enough to make diverse dinners and exorbitantly caloried desserts—and you’re a fool if you think the Cool Mint Chocolate Clif Bar isn’t dope—but I now understand why I have affection for eating out. It isn’t an insatiable hunger for ramen; it’s because there are people sitting across from me whom I want to be around.

A few hours ago. I sat down with Matt at Crazy Sushi. We split four rolls and an appetizer between us. And then we talked for two hours. We outlasted the lobby: we left as they turned the sign to prepare for dinner service! My food was excellent—I’ve ordered too many sushi boats with Neima, Sina, and Morgan not to love it there—but the taste of jalapeño and unagi sauce is nothing compared to talking about Past Lives with my oldest friend. The barbecued albacore is a filter; friendship is Instagram itself.

And only minutes ago, I locked in plans with Maia and Julia for dinner at Mike’s Diner. There’s no restaurant I feel more comfortable at than that one, and I’ve tried more than 75% of the menu, but I couldn’t care less about the food! I’ll probably just order breakfast—it’s about seeing these people I love. That all of us munch on comfort food for the duration is gravy.

The occasion, you see, is them. I want to see them. I want to talk to them and feel this impossible safety their presence gifts me, the same kinda glow that reflects off Matt and into my heart. There’s just food between us, so our stomachs don’t grumble the whole time, and so we have something to do with our hands.

Getting older means seeing less of the people who make your life feel full. So you fill your stomachs together in the hope your heart follows your fork’s lead until the next meal arrives.

Makes sense to me.

*****

Which brings me back to Five Guys. Five Guys is my place. As long as they’re open, I go there on New Year’s Eve and leave an envelope of money in the tip jar. In 2021, it eclipsed $200.

This sounds crazy, especially to the “iT’S oVeRpRiCed” crowd. (You can’t see it, but I’m giving them the finger now—the benefit of typing with one thumb!) Maybe it is crazy. I know my mental state, and, well, my lack of objection speaks volumes. But I’m not doing it for nothing.

In 2015, 2016, and 2017, I ate at Five Guys a lot. The average school year Friday ended at Five Guys. The team there knew me. The party size varied from four or five to twenty, but we were regulars. They always loaded up the fries. Many times, they comped my burger.

Once we got there, we’d just talk and eat. So many times, it was Maia, Megan, Bria, Morgan, and Zach, so much so that I can’t help but think of it as their place. But there was something magical that stretched beyond that group that became my rock. When Axel, Nikki, and Elon joined us after Challenge Day, it was the ‘14/‘17 crossover no one was asking for. Another event saw Layla and Lauryn stay long past sundown basking in the peanut oil glow; I’ve talked with Eric about astrophysics and Morgann about yoga. One night, it was Winney, Carter, Bradley, and Nate with Maia and me, an eclectic Mathletes collective that talked like old friends. One week, it’s Mike and Jacqui; another, it’s Alyiah and me talking term papers, or Lucas and I sit down for the first time in years. The person who will inherit my retirement account came out to me there. My phone is packed with these photos from Five Guys. Hell, my 31st birthday was marked by all of them with laser tag…after pushing together tables at Five Guys.

There’s this video I recorded in the very beginning. The original crew were sitting at a table right by the fountain drinks when “Escape” by Rupert Holmes came onto the speakers. If it doesn’t sound familiar, know I’m talking about the Piña Colada song, the one about the couple trying to cheat on each other that opens every chorus with “If you like piña coladas”. Yeah, that’s the one.

So the song starts, and the girls have been on this big Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack kick for a while, so they know the chorus by heart. We’re in the middle of a restaurant at dinner time, so the place is packed with people, but they just start singing the song. Like…out loud. Full voice. This is a thing that can happen when you spend time around groups of seventeen-year-olds. And, hey, I love these people, but I’m not gonna join them! Fuck no! We’re in Five Guys, not the car or the classroom. And it’s such a silly song!

They don’t care. They’re just singing, even the parts they barely know. People are probably looking—I ain’t gonna check—but then it hits the chorus, and I realize that I’m just laughing. I’m just laughing at the ludicrousness of this singing and this song and that I’m at the table with them and that this is making me forget everything else because this moment is just blotting out the rest of my life. I’m just there in my chair, cringing and laughing and so so so present you could see the bow on top.

For that entire year, I woke up disappointed that I had. I hated being alive, I hated myself, and I hated that I was compelled to keep up all these charades of existing. What I didn’t hate was them. They were the only times I didn’t think about those feelings. I couldn’t hear my own thoughts when they were GETTING CAUGHT IN THE RAINing in the middle of a fucking restaurant.

I pulled out my phone in Five Guys and recorded them acting like idiots. I told myself that a moment like this would be funny in the Mathletes slideshow. But I also told myself that feeling free like this—that wouldn’t happen again.

I was wrong. We went back dozens of times. I’m not exaggerating. There were probably fifty different people who joined us. That damned song played nearly every time.

They often made up reasons to go. The celebration conditions were flimsy. But I always said yes.

I marked every one of those meals as special. The occasion?

Being alive. With them.

How can In-N-Out compete with that? We always went to Five Guys.

It’s just a coincidence their burgers are superior.

---

I gave myself one night to write something. I had two hours. This is what I came up with. I couldn’t be happier.

Although I’m craving burgers now.

Happy Thanksgiving!