DINING OUT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 221, 12 May 1932, Page 7

DINING OUT

AN EVENT NOT ALWAYS PLEASURABLE Dear Readers, — Another week has passed and once more. I take up my, pen. What shall I write about this time? A short article which I was reading the otlier •afternoon on "Dining Out" struck me as somewhat unusual. The writer's observationg seemed to be so very true to our own thoughts upon such occasions that I think you, too, may find some interest in it and 1 will pass it on to you. Dinner parties se'em very grand to the ear, but are they such enjoyable functions as their name leads us to believe? I feel sure lots of , people will reply with a definite no. In fact, of all the high feasts and festivals that society insists on our observing the most unsatisfactory are surely parties. To the novice, they seem to bristle with pitfalls and countless opportunities for making mistakes, while to the hardened diner-out, they are as a rule boring and wearisome to th?i last degree. In the first place, a dinner invitation is so much more binding than any other. Having once accepted it, nothing but the most urgent necessity can be allowad to

interfere with it. To excuse yourself at the eleventh Hour is, in most cases, to upset your hostess's plans and to cause much inconvenience; hence such au act is unforgiveable unless you can produce some really genuine excuse, and that, too, calls for a considerable amount of tact. We accspt such invitations and then wonder afterwards what could have induced us to be so weak-minded. We go on entertaining the lurking hope that something may happen at the last moment to prevent our going, but on such occasions it never does! Another drawback to these functions, especially if they • are very formal ones, is the, limitation of opportunities for conversation. Depending upon the people, possibly strangers, each side of you for your whole conversation hecomes a truly desperate business unless Fate smiles upon you that night and provides you with a congenial conversationalist which alas, is very seldom. Only too frequently does one's legitimate neighbour jerk out tepid remarks about the weather and other equally obvious topics, till the one and only dcsire of the feminine soul is to shake him. Nevertheless, these functions come along. and must be endured at times, therefore the all-important thing is to meet them gracefully. M ;