had a painful update last week: some people *actually* think it's not fraud to sell processed cheese as "cheese" at a restaurant I've been in denial for years but when I finally let it in it wasn't so bad story in thread
12 tweets · June 2023 · 89 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
had a painful update last week: some people *actually* think it's not fraud to sell processed cheese as "cheese" at a restaurant I've been in denial for years but when I finally let it in it wasn't so bad story in thread
at the end of the meal, I commented about it to the waitress. I phrased it something like "I was surprised to see that from a place this fancy" (and, I didn't comment, the pork belly sandwich was like $20) and she was like "I mean, we're a pub" "but the bread was nice!"
and my friend was like "why'd you have to go and make a scene?" ...this friend tends towards self-apologizing, so initially I thought he was just awkward about me taking up space
I tried explaining that earlier when the waitress had asked "how's everything?" I'd said "fine" because I'd already been picky about a drink earlier and didn't want to imply they should take the sandwich back or anything & I didn't want to lie that I was actually fine with it
my friend shrugged and dropped it, but I was still ruminating on it, and when I got back to my airbnb and laid down to stare at the ceiling, I noticed... ...it was me who was wrong. as a Canadian, I've learned to ask before ever ordering pancakes, since I won't eat fake syrup
and that while I personally consider table syrup and processed cheese to be basically not-food-at-all... ...some people just ACTUALLY think of processed cheese as "a kind of cheese", not "fraudulent cheese". that disgusts me, but it's true
like, my values are my values, and my values might EVEN be more developed in some sense that in a sane society people would converge on them I might be right in that sense but I was wrong that the pub "should have told/warned me" it was processed cheese. that was a judgment.
(I also realized that I'd been thinking of it like it was kraft singles and I suddenly noticed that it hadn't been THAT bad—I'd say a whole tier up, not that that's saying much.)
anyway, this feels to me like a powerful lil case study in something about regret/rumination there was important information in what I was stuck on, but it wasn't quite what I thought
the reason I ended up being rude was from a context mismatch—in the sort of society I want to live in (admittedly somewhat non-lower-class, which I thought this pub with its fancy bread was above) we don't serve processed cheese but I hadn't *actually* recognized I wasn't there
to be honest, I don't even feel bad about wanting to communicate about the mismatch, but I didn't have the grace in the "I mean, we're a pub" moment to reply "oh. huh. I guess so." and acknowledge the sense in which the cheese *was* appropriate
instead I was defensive and kinda bitter and (as it always seems to go) the answer was to own my own view/values more, but AS MINE, which enabled me to actually take in theirs