https://www.newyorker.com/humor/shouts-murmurs/how-long-each-couple-at-a-fancy-dinner-will-stay-together

How Long Each Couple at a Fancy Dinner Will Stay Together


August 8, 2024
Photograph from Getty

The hippest new Italian-Indian fusion restaurant in a gentrified neighborhood near you will be bustling with couples come Saturday night. Here’s what’s bubbling beneath the surface of these seemingly innocuous dinner dates.

The Couple That’s on Top of Each Other

They’re playing footsie and giggling like schoolgirls. The overhyped orzo-biryani entrée that would make every Indian and Italian grandparent roll in their graves remains untouched after one bite. The six empty cocktail glasses are piled up because even the waiter doesn’t want to interrupt the smooch sesh.

Will they make it? Unfortunately for the cynics and P.D.A.-haters, they are going to make it. Lack of self-awareness is the key to happiness.

The Situationship

They’re on bread basket No. 2. But of course they are—stuffing themselves with empty calories is their attachment style. Do not ask them if they’re together! Not unless you want to sit through a rambling response that will absolutely not answer the question. Their comfortable silence suggests that they spend all of their time together. But they call it a long-term, open, casual emotional commitment because one of them occasionally flirts with other people, and gets rejected.

Will they make it? They will last until one of them falls in love with a co-worker.

The How Did He Bag Her? Couple

She’s stunning, glowing, wearing stilettos, and he looks like he stopped by on the way to the gym. Oh, wait, that’s Justin and Hailey Beiber . . .

Will they make it? Sure.

The TikTok Prank Couple

These two D-list celebrities are meticulously documenting their seven-course meal, somehow in sponsorship with Clorox. They don’t seem to mind that people shoot them dirty looks every time the flash goes off—which is every ten seconds. Besides posts of them pranking each other to elicit comments of "OMG" and "you guys are the cutest, I wish my boyfriend cared if I lived or died," they’ve also posted videos about finding each other after their worst heartbreaks (which, when you look like movie stars, is when you get fewer than sixty likes on Hinge).

Will they make it? They have nothing in common besides categorizing attention as a food group. This is a business partnership, not romance. They’re basically Bill and Hillary. So, yes.

The Man Who Hopes That the Woman Isn’t Expecting a Ring

She already has the caption picked out: "He had a question. I had an answer." She wore the outfit, hoping for the best, but has barely touched her artichoke tikka masala. He’s guzzling his wine in an effort to avoid eye contact, and wondering how to keep her on the line without reeling her in.

Will they make it? For another seven years of excruciating dinners just like this one.

The Soft Launch

They’re dressed to the nines—nervous, smiling, and using silverware to eat their soggy dal pizza—because tonight’s their first fancy dinner! Now they’re a real couple. No more posting photos of cropped limbs to suggest the existence of a partner. They’re about to post each other’s faces to the Metaverse and become social-media official.

Will they make it? No. The universal rule is that as soon as you post someone’s face, that’s when the breakup happens.

The Wallace and Gromit

One of them is making jokes with the waiter; the other is judging the TikTok prank couple. One points out how the chai tiramisu is in a heart shape, how cute is that? The other responds that capitalism is ruining relationships by pressuring men to overdeliver and women to overconsume as evidence of love, thus further reinforcing heteronormative gender roles—in a progressive society, men shouldn’t be obligated to get their girlfriends flowers.

Will they make it? In exactly eleven months, she will finally listen to her therapist and closest friends and dump him.

The Couple That Needs This to Save Their Marriage

They clutch hands in a viselike grip across the table, which is too wide for this to look natural. Their energy is less romantic, more of a desperate, "Please don’t leave me, let this dinner be enough to make up for my liking Instagram photos of my ex and then gaslighting you about it." They got a babysitter for this!

Will they make it? Until one of them is caught liking suspect Instagram photos again.

The Beavers

Beavers mate for life, just like these two. This is the first restaurant that came up when they Googled "nice restaurant near me." Their phones have been put away, their plates are almost empty, and there are wonderful, peaceful lulls in their conversation.

Will they make it? The truth is that love is an ever-changing, inexplicable connection as fickle as a candle flame—it can blow out in the wind or burn a whole place down. One day, someone is your best friend, the next day you find yourself in disbelief that the person you married doesn’t believe in the moon. Not the moon landing but the entire moon. How did you not see it when they called "Apollo 13" a fantasy film? Or when they said that the moon is just product placement for Big Dairy? You thought they were joking! Is it messed up that you still love them and want to spend the rest of your life with them? In sickness and in health . . . Anyway, yes. ♦