When you're with ML in company, there's never a dull moment...
We met up for dinner today as I wanted to pass her some of the tea eggs to try. She recommended a Vietnamese noodle place called Viet Pho, a small restaurant with a relatively big queue. When it was going to be our turn to be seated, it was obvious that the next table available would be for 4. The pair behind us asked if we mind and we readily agreed to share the table *well, it'll take even longer to wait for a table for 2 anyway*.
Once seated, the guy said he was going to buy a bottle of wine and kindly asked if we drink. I said you guys go ahead. ML asked if it was their treat -_-; While he was out, the lady and ML wasted no time and was already in deep conversation *they were sitting on the same side* before the waitress came to take our orders.
I'd decided on having the same thing as ML since she already knew what she wanted, it was my first try of Vietnamese fare, and that was the next best sounding dish on the menu which didn't involve beef in any way. The other couple were first-timers as well, so ML started recommending dishes from the menu. The couple turned out to be married, lived in France, wife doing MBA in London while husband on secondment to Abu Dhabi.
Honestly, I sympathise entirely with the waitress. It was hard enough dealing with 2 parties in the same table who appear to be having a pleasant time sharing said table even before orders were placed. But with Ml added into the mix? Nothing against her, mind you *quite hard to, actually :p*. But if you never knew a person who's random, you've never met someone like her.
There's an uncanny quality about her that even friends can easily become amusingly confused. Not to mention the rare ability to say somthing that often isn't vague, yet could clearly and contradictorily be taken to mean more ways than one. On this occasion, for example, she responded to the waitress' query on whether there'll be a single bill for the table in a way which conveyed an impression of 'yes, only 1 bill' while actually intending 'no, separate bills please' -_- *I know because I confirmed my suspicions with her once the waitress was gone*. We only found out later after the food arrived that ML had only been there once before, ordering the one same dish, despite her eager recommendations - the arrival of the 1st starter she ordered and didn't recognise was a dead giveaway *poor waitress had to take the dish away upon seeing our blank faces and placed it down again in front of us after checking at the counter that she was right*.
Then again, you can't wish for better company when entertaining or dealing with strangers. ML is quite the veritable source for amusing anecdotes *many from personal experience too :p* and an absolute minefield for generating random conversation topics. Without even having to try. She is also quite capable of carrying on several different conversations on several unrelated subjects with the same person, all at once in the span of 1 usual conversation. And continuing after, picking up a line of thought from some other past conversations without warning. One has to multitask just to keep up and remain coherent. Or, say, develop schizophrenic properties in listening.
This must be why our table of strangers was a merry party of 4 in no time at all, touching on *in rough order of sequence, as far as I can remember* wines in the afternoon, iphones, chinese bananas, the gastronomic experience *at one point, ML was gushing about Gordon Ramsay's table bookings and switching directly to KFC, the chemistry of, in less than 10 seconds*, guys in pink shirts, french kissing *the apparent myth of*, Buddhism and non-beef Buddhists, origins of the no-pork policy in Islam, drag queens on Japanese national TV, university lecturers and children's school teachers who aren't afraid to flaunt their sexiness *and sexuality*, exchanging restaurant recommendations, the meaning and origins of 'kiasu', towns over-crowding with tourists in Southern France, the merits and logistic value of lodgings in Bayswater, barter trade between local arabs and foreign women, dim sum and the inadvertant flirt,...
Do you even begin to see a pattern? o.O
*no prizes in guessing which of the above was my only salient contribution to the conversation -_-*
And so in 2.5 hours and moving from dinner to a quick coffee/dessert *went to this quaint pattisserie nearby recommended by the couple, after we walked around Chinatown once with ML and I being unable to think of a decent Chinese place which didn't require a min charge/dish per person or serves dessert only before 10.30pm*, friends were made and contacts exchanged between ML and the wife.
*somehow, the whole thing felt like me playing the bored bf/husband supporting role to ML... ML and the wife were chatting happily soon after we sat down, while the husband and I attempted to make conversation and exchanging the knowing looks that husbands share when their wives are otherwise preoccupied with enthusiastic conversations in the way females often do among themselves. ML even uttered the classic phrase along the lines of 'you guys should talk too' while waving a hand at the husband and I -_- then again, I'm not known for being feminine anyway. Oh, and ML was walking with a hand through my arm all the time, although that was because she had fallen down the stairs earlier in the week and hadn't fully recovered yet*
It is somehow both comforting to know that I'm poles apart from ML, and yet resignedly disquieting that I can't afford to be like ML.
... naturally anti-social me.
