When you dine out with your friends, you’re not just doing so to spend money or waste time. You hope for the day to be eventful and for the meal to be unforgettable. It’s the combination of food, conversation, and company that makes the dinner unlike any other. And even if you go to the same places in Oklahoma, each visit will be unique and cannot be replicated.
It’s safe to say that you’re eating for the experience. But how can you guarantee a good time rather than a sour evening?
Be Considerate of Everyone’s Diet
It would be fun to try all the restaurants in Grove, Oklahoma, with your friends. However, before you make reservations, ask about the kinds of food they offer to know if they can be a good fit for everyone in your friend group. If one restaurant is known for its dairy products and one of your friends is lactose intolerant, that’s not going to be fun. Unless they have non-dairy alternatives, you might want to rethink the reservation and consider a restaurant that fits everyone’s diets better. Later, you can try that restaurant with a different group of people–with no one having any dairy-related concerns.
Let Everyone Have Their Turn
Meeting friends can be the best or worst experience because of the conversation happening. To keep everyone in a good mood, let them have their turn to share their successes and happy experiences. Even if they have a problem they want to share, don’t cut them off and say you know better. Approach the conversation with an open mind and be considerate of each other’s feelings. Especially if the dinner involves drinks, you’ll want to be careful with how much you drink if you have a history of spilling the wrong things at the wrong time.
Order Conscientiously
If you’re paying for the meal, you’ll be concerned with the price, of course. However, your budget should not stop everyone from having a good time and going home satisfied with the meal they had. Your friends will appreciate if you tell them beforehand that you need help paying the bill. They’ll be willing to contribute. If you don’t want to talk about your finances to your dinner group, consider a change in venue. There are restaurants that offer great meals, especially group deals. This way, you will have plenty of food on the table but will not worry about the total bill when it’s time to pay.
Conversely, it will be wasteful to order too much food just because you’re boasting about your pay raise. Consider how much will be enough for your group depending on everyone’s appetite. You can always order additional food later, but you cannot undo any order and uneaten food might just go to waste.
Dinner is not just dinner. When you’re hanging out with your friends over food, everything that happens around the table can be memorable in the good or bad way. Work on a more positive experience by being mindful of your actions.
