Over the past few weeks I’ve really been noticing how
distracted we are at dinner. Whether it is friends or couples or families the
distractions are always there. Sometimes it’s a television that is at the
restaurant and sometimes it’s our cell phones. It seems like we can’t sit down
for a meal and not pull out our phones, or not get sucked into the sports game
that is on the television behind our date’s head. I too am guilty of this, but
I want it to change.
This past
week I told my fiancé that I didn’t want us to use our phones at all when we
were out to dinner. This was said after we were at Malawi’s for dinner and we
couldn’t stop watching the televisions that were situated all around the
restaurant. We are usually really good about not using our phones when we are
together, but I know that we can do better. Not that the use is always bad, but
it is still a distraction. Sometimes we both have a question and don’t know the
answer so we’ll whip out a smart phone. But why do we have to do it right then?
Why can’t we wait til after dinner? But we can, we can wait.
I think
really being there and really engaging in conversation with those we are with
is so important. I have the goal to be less distracted. I want to be more
focused on the individuals I’m with because I want those that I’m with to be
able to focus on me as well. Distractions are everywhere, but we can choose. We
are in control of how much time we give to these distractions.
This is a really admirable goal. I have had similar frustrations at times because my husband and I will be talking at dinner, and of course our phones are right in our pockets, so if we get to some question in our conversation we always just ask google. But then the phone tends to stay out and we look at other things, or respond to some texts "real quick". I think that the ease and speed with which we can use technology adds to the temptation to be distracted because we don't think it will be a big deal. However, I have found that we always end up filling our time with a lot of little things on the phone and miss the big things happening with the people around us.
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