Restaurant Hosts Terrify Me

The benefits of being honest about my quirks.

Is our table ready yet?

I walk towards the door, my pace slowing as my hands start getting clammy. My mouth draws in and my chest tightens. Potential excuses for turning around fly through my head. 

Am I heading to the boss’s office for an unexpected meeting? About to take a high stakes exam? Entering the hospital room of an injured friend?

Nope. I’m walking into a restaurant and about to ask for a table. And I am filled with anxiety.

I am a grown man. I’m forty-one, six-foot-two, 200 pounds, bearded, probably wearing my favorite Carhartt hat. I look exceedingly normal. And oh man do I not want to interact with the person who just wants to find me a table and give me a menu.

I have never, not once in my life, had a restaurant host be anything but kind and helpful to me. Only good experiences, and yet I dread interacting with them. If I’m with a group, I’ll sneak in front and hold open the door for everyone, all but guaranteeing someone else will answer the very answerable question of, “How many in your group?”

I’ll be on a date, and this is what will make me most nervous. First date, never met the person before, and entering the restaurant is the thing making my stomach queasy.

Why on earth am I telling you this? Why am I telling the internet this?

Because for a long time I felt ashamed of this anxiety, and the best antidote to shame is revealing that it exists.

So back to the revealing.

Why the Dread?

Fair question. I don’t have an exact answer. But I have a few ideas:

• I have a deep-rooted fear of any sort of conflict (yup, severe people pleaser here) and dread the possibility of the host being upset with me for having to put them in the position of telling me there is not, in fact, a table available at the moment.

• Restaurant hosts are legitimately terrifying and y’all are just pretending they’re not.

• I have a deep-rooted fear of being judged and I just wait for the moment when I’ll be told there’s a ninety minute wait while watching new arrivals immediately bein seated, one after another, as I look on.

• I’ve been taught that getting a table at a busy restaurant is a matter of throwing your masculinity around in a confident and arrogant way. As someone who feels deeply uncomfortable doing that, I hate entering situations where that might be expected of me.

• I inherently don’t feel good enough, and getting seated is a way of being measured up. Despite having always gotten a table (or being told very politely how incredibly long the wait is), I’m still assuming the next time will be when I’m informed that I don’t belong and I need to leave.

Notice a trend? An overarching fear of what other people think of me? A general wariness of not being inside the Box of Acceptable in a public place?

Maybe you can deeply relate to some of these reasons. Maybe they don’t ring a bell for you at all. Either is completely fine. The important part is knowing that someone has these experiences. You’ll either feel less alone or gain a better sense of the lived experiences of those different from you.

But back to the revealing.

There’s MORE?

It’s definitely not only the restaurant host situation. I’ve got some momentum going, so here are a few more circumstances I have a visceral dislike of:

• Calling a stranger on the phone - especially someone I’m attempting to hire, say an electrician or other contractor.

• Having a friendly chat with a neighbor while taking out the trash (and no, not just the annoying neighbor who will talk for a half hour straight about their second cousin’s latest medical issues.)

• Using any sort of car for hire service (Lyft, Uber, a taxi) – unless it’s a driverless car. (So yes, it’s 100% about interacting with a stranger.)

Sharing these publicly even five years ago would’ve been incredibly difficult for me. I would’ve gone into a panic, absolutely sure I’d be ostracized for admitting to these “defects”.

But since then I’ve gradually opened up. I’ve shared what I dread and discovered I am not the only person who feels this way.

I can take a lot of comfort in knowing I’m not the only one with restauranthostphobia and related ailments. I can notice that feeling of dread, recognize the absurdity of it, and chuckle to myself as I confront my fears. I can continue to tell myself that I do belong here, I am worthy of a table at a restaurant, that I don’t need to feel ashamed about this. I can both be not content with where I’m at, and be proud of the progress I’m making and self-compassion I’m finding.

Not feeling alone dissolves shame like nothing else can.

And if I have some understanding of my own quirks, I can turn that outward. I can have a bit more compassion for those struggling with everyday things that I in turn find simple. By reducing the shame and judgment I inflict on myself, I project less of that shame and judgment onto others. One more step towards showing up as the person I want to be in this world.

This entire approach is often called revealing your experience – and is a key way of reducing shame and developing better connections with those around you. I’ll be referencing it a lot going forward.

Meanwhile, time for me to decide if I should just stay home and make a PB&J, or put on a brave face, venture out, and utter the terrifying words, “Table for two, please!”

Resources

I was introduced to the concept of revealing your experience through the Authentic Relating movement, specifically ART. For a much deeper dive, I highly recommend their training offerings and book.

For an engaging story on exclusion and seeking belonging, check out this two-part series from the Search Engine podcast.

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