Sharing Nachos

Being the social anthropologist I am, I find small ways to make big observation about people when I am out among them. First, it is important to stay in disguise at all times - meaning, your subjects must never know you are watching them. If they suspect you are, their behavior will be altered and you may be asked to leave, depending on the type of establishment you are patronizing.

There are certain places that are excellent for watching humans in their native habitats. The shopping mall is one, and TGI Fridays is another. I pick on Fridays because it caters to the 85 percentile person. You will find a range in age on any given night. You will find people there to watch sports, to drink, to hook up, to have a girls night out, or any other myriad activity.

And they have nachos.

What do nachos have to do with anything? Oh, you are so good at asking the right questions. You can tell a lot about people from how they share nachos. For instance, a couple in the infancy of their relationship, within the first few dates, are almost always focused on each other and not the nachos. They deconstruct the nachos slowly, from edge working in to center. The nachos are a safety mechanism, a shared project and a possible source of conversation if it is getting a little dull. The girl will pick around for a nacho not too loaded, not too big and eat it in small bites, followed by a demure dab of the corner of her lips with her napkin. Neither party ever licks their fingers, for they are not far enough into their relationship for licked finger double dipping. This couple actually uses the small appetizer plates that the server handed them at the beginning of the meal. This is apparently the purpose for which they are intended. They often ask for, and use, extra napkins.

At the next table, we see a married couple over the same nachos. Sharing here is a relative term at most. They immediately dive in, going from center to edge grabbing for all the toppings that each chip will bear. There is little talking and what talking there is is usually about the nachos and their relative goodness, or a passive-aggressive comment about not eating them all. All talking is accompanied by small ejecta from the mouth area which is ignored, unless said ejecta is deemed large enough to warrant attention, in which case it is picked up from where it lay and reintroduced into the mouth. This is done with one hand, without looking while the eyes continue to scan the remaining nachos formulating the other hand's next move. the strategy employed is like a chess game, fluid and changing in response to the opponent's last move. The appetizer plates are shoved aside as they are merely getting in the way of the straight path to the nachos. They remain so clean the restaurant could use them for another table. The married couple's napkins stay firmly on their laps as they use the traditional lick and suck methods of cleaning themselves while eating. the tongue is employed to clean large foodstuffs from the immediate area around the mouth, while the mouth itself is used to clean the fingers.

In fact, the only time the napkin is used is when one member of the couple is signifying they are done; they are, in effect throwing in the towel. This is the signal that allows the other party to "have at it" and finish the plate. No eye contact shall be made during this picking clean process as it would only call attention to the graphic nature of what has just transpired.

Now, as we go back to the table of the couple who are dating, we see there is still a considerable amount of nachos left on the plate, even though the married couple is paying the check and grabbing for their coats. As the nacho supply dwindles, each person slows their eating, not wanting to appear too aggressive. The nachos almost never get finished. There are several different motivations for this.

The woman does not want to appear to be a "big eater" and the man, anticipating (nae, hoping for) some sort of physical congress in the not too distant future (perhaps even in the parking lot) tries not to fill up too much. There is also a tacit acknowledgment that there exists enough prosperity between the two that they can afford to throw perfectly good food away; which as we all know is very important in America.

In next week's lesson, we will discuss dessert sharing and how it relates to relationship stamina.