What do you do?
Of all of the big questions in life, perhaps the most neglected one is this:
Should you inform somebody of the fact that they have food on their face if they are unaware?
I feel guilty either way. If you tell the person, it’s incredibly difficult to phrase it in such a way that isn’t condescending. It almost always comes across as: “Look at you with food on your face, you inferior, unsophisticated fool.”
But that’s not what I mean at all! I’m simply trying to save you the embarrassment of looking like a 2 year old. But if you don’t tell them, they spend the rest of their evening enjoying themselves whilst being oblivious to the fact that they’re 'the guy with food on his face'. No doubt, they’ll discover it with great sorrow when they get home.
Surely I’m not the only one who faces this dilemma. I firmly believe that this needs to be addressed. Perhaps the predicament is never going to have a solution, but could we perhaps manage it better?
My suggestion is this:
We invent some type of signal or gesture that we can subtly show to the (for lack of a better term) 'food-fool', and he/she will thus recognise that they have misplaced some dinner on their face - perhaps a hand gesture, a scratch of the ear or some simple action that can universally signal some food gone astray. They’ll understand that this expression was done not out of a desire to find faults or embarrass, but out of genuine care.
And maybe we’ll be able to enjoy the rest of our evenings. No embarrassment, no regret, and no food-fools.
- Daniel
