Cutlery-related social faux pas: the living nightmare that is restaurant dining

I hate cutlery. I hate it with a venom reserved only for those objects in life that float under the radar with the pretence of being useful, when in actual fact what they are is just another opportunity to fall foul of the dating game.

Now, I know this view may be slightly contentious and some people may think ‘surely it’s bad manners not to if you’re halfway through your meal?’, while others will say ‘why do you even waste your time thinking about these things?’, but I don’t care. Under no circumstance should cutlery ever be crossed. No fork, no knife, no spoon should come in contact with any other utensil. Ever.

You see, bad things happen when you cross cutlery. Unspeakable things. And yes, you may very well be sat there laughing into your lunch at this suggestion, but woe betide those who deny the cutlery curse. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but some day you will regret all that crossed cutlery, mark my words.

The non-cutlery crossing routine is a relatively simple rule for me to follow at home, where I can correct accidental crossings with ease and without fear of rebuttal or ridicule. Where it all goes wrong is when I attempt to leave the house.

Imagine this: you are sat in a lovely Italian restaurant on a date with a lovely Italian man (or woman), sipping at fine wine and getting along famously. Then, just as your companion finishes their starter, you watch – perhaps in slow motion, like many of the bad things in life – as they place their knife and fork on their plate, deliberately crossing one over the other.

You are speechless. You feel sick. But the worst thing is you’re thinking: do I risk appearing to be an insane asylum escapee by requesting that they uncross their knife and fork? Do I do it for them? You can’t; it would be pure madness to reach over and meddle with their cutlery. So you sit there, suffering in silence, until the plate is taken away. But then your mind begins to wander: did the waiter uncross the knife and fork when they took the plate to the kitchen? Are the knife and fork still crossed right now?

…And the date is ruined.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be cutlery that throws you off your game; it applies to all things. Imagine seeing – for example – your ex on a neighbouring table. Then imagine them catching your eye and getting up to walk over, and you’ll be about where I am on the cutlery front. Sweating, nauseous and scanning the horizon for a quick exit.

There must be room in the market for a dating site along the lines of phobiamatch.com, where you can filter potential partners based on preferred behaviour, such as no cutlery crossing. But then the risk of ending up with a similar nutcase is very high, and I wouldn’t want to cross the streams…

Houston, we have a problem: the perils of an overactive imagination.

Following a rushed shower and an even speedier fifteen minute stroll to the train station, I scrambled aboard this morning’s 7am service from Brighton to Bedford with just a minute to spare, found my usual seat across from the guy who eats bananas (yuck) and next to the woman who wears red lipstick a shade too vibrant at that time of day, and shook open my morning copy of the Metro.

The usual stories are there: man milks seal, fuel prices up, house prices down, we’re all going to starve, die or burn. I read the horoscopes, the comic strips and a review of last night’s TV. The usual columnist appears to be on holiday; how dare he. By the time I’ve completed this morning ritual, I will have reached Three Bridges, the stop before… (insert scary music here or duh duh duuuuuhhhh! as appropriate) GATWICK AIRPORT.

Gatwick Airport. The Axis Of All Evil. The place where Satan will go to die. Horror incarnate.

If you haven’t guessed already, I have a minor fear of flying. Indeed, I long ago swore off the possibility that I could ever board a plane again. However, what I did not take into account when I took my poxy job in London a year ago was that I would encounter aeroplanes twice a day, five days a week, in crushingly close proximity by necessity.

As the train approaches the Gatwick Airport station stop I find myself peering out of the window at an oncoming plane, whose ability to stay in the sky is based entirely on theory alone, as it brushes inches above the carriage as it comes in to land.

What follows is, I’m sure, the result of an over-fertile imagination. I envisage the plane losing control at the last minute of its descent and then crashing nose first into the train, blowing bits of metal and body everywhere, shattering glass into the faces and arms and legs of the poor passengers as the plane carves the train carriage in half. Panic ensues. Those who have survived in the carriages on either end of the impact point begin to scream as it slowly dawns on them what has happened, and they wander, helpless, out onto the platform to survey the damage…

And so on and so forth. It’s amazing what your mind can cook up if you let it.

So, in a bid to stop the inevitable plane crash from occurring, I tap my head twice, cross my fingers and screw up my eyes until I can feel the train leaving the platform, and we are alive and well.

This is the way I deal with all bad thoughts: two taps to the head. In my mind, this prevents bad thoughts from becoming a reality, for example, massive train and plane collisions, television explosions, knife crime-related deaths, et cetera.

Is it normal for people with OCD to combat bad thoughts with routine to stop them from happening? Yes. Is this an utterly egotistical thought process that assumes you have control over yours, and everyone else’s, destiny? That’s a different story