Did I Make a social faux pas??

[HotelMinion]

Soooo....a bunch of us strangers in the social club I'm in went to a place that has fondue. I've never had fondue before but it sounded delicious so I figured I'd give it a try.
So we all sat down in a circle at a big table. We had a private room. Yay, I don't have to listen to babies screaming. It was mostly full of smooching couples tho. The restaurant, not the room. Lol.
So we sit and the waiters takes our orders and leave. He gives us our drinks and I'm sipping away, getting a nice buzz and feeling all relaxed yet terribly excited about the fondue. I'm listening to other people make small talk but most of the conversations don't interest me. They're inside jokes that I don't get, I think.
So the waiter finally comes out with the fondue and it looks delicious. The lady that sat next to me, a lady in her 40s or 50s, turns to me. "Were you looking forward to today?" she asks me.
"Oh, yes, to try the fondue here, it sounds and looks delicious" I said with a big smile.
"Well!" she said in an offended and chocked tone and her face looked offended and shocked too. I was confused. The waiter finished setting the plates and everyone dug in. SO I did too. It was delicious, something from heaven. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Oh yeah bliss.
The lady turned to her other side and ignored me for the rest of the night. I had the feeling that I had offended her somehow, but I didn't want to apologize because I didn't know what I said was wrong. Any ideas?

[AnaKhouri]

The only thing I can think is that she was asking if you were looking forward to hanging out with your friends, and when you said you were looking forward to the fondue she interpreted that as meaning you only came for the food and not the company at all.

It's a real stretch on my part though so I don't think you did anything wrong, if it went down like I'm speculating then it was all in her head.

[EricKei]

I certainly wouldn't have looked forward to hanging out with that woman I don't see where you did anything wrong.

[XCashier]

Misunderstanding a question may be a minor faux pas, but not nearly as bad of one as overreacting to a misunderstanding and being a snob. She did worse than you, in other words. At least that's how I see it.

[Food Lady]

She's one of those people who is angry she can't control what other people are feeling. It's epidemic here in the midwest. Not sure about where you live.

[BookstoreEscapee]

The only thing I can think is that she was asking if you were looking forward to hanging out with your friends, and when you said you were looking forward to the fondue she interpreted that as meaning you only came for the food and not the company at all.

It's a real stretch on my part though so I don't think you did anything wrong, if it went down like I'm speculating then it was all in her head.

I don't think it's a stretch. That's exactly what I was thinking.

[Food Lady]

Even if that's the case, she had no right to judge another person's feelings. I am sick to death of that attitude. HM, you did nothing wrong. That woman is a control freak. She oughta move to WI. She'd fit right in here.

[MoonCat]

I suspect she has a hearing problem and thought you said something else entirely.

[dalesys]

..."Oh, yes, to try the fondue here..."

I suspect she has a hearing problem and thought you said something else entirely.

"Oh, yes, to try to fondle you."

[HotelMinion]

The only thing I can think is that she was asking if you were looking forward to hanging out with your friends, and when you said you were looking forward to the fondue she interpreted that as meaning you only came for the food and not the company at all.

It's a real stretch on my part though so I don't think you did anything wrong, if it went down like I'm speculating then it was all in her head.

Yeah that did cross my mind but wouldn't she figure that if I didn't want company that I would've went ALONE?? :\ Cuz it's true, if I didn't want company I would've gone by myself.

"Oh, yes, to try to fondle you."

LOL! Well she did seemed very shocked like if I just grabbed her boob. Even tho I did not!

[Seshat]

You specified that to you the people were strangers. I can only assume that to her they're dear friends, and she was (somehow) expecting this to be the case for you as well.

It's obvious to ME that if they were strangers to you, then you would be a stranger to them - thus, to her, and so she should have expected you to not be 'excited to catch up with old friends'.


Now, there is something that Bast and I have been exploring. Bast has an INCREDIBLE ability to perceive and recognise faces and people. She can see someone once or twice, then recognise them ten years later with a different hairstyle and having aged ...

I, on the other hand, can fail to recognise my own mother. And have. I've failed to recognise my father, my brother... even Bast and Toth. They know that if I'm waiting for them somewhere, THEY are going to have to be the ones to come up to ME.
(This also seriously affects my ability to watch TV/movies/etc. It's also why I never got into the idea of 'following celebrity gossip'. It's a banner day if I can manage to ask 'hey, is that the actress who plays Rose Tyler?'....)


So the two of us are at extremes. But until we actually started talking about it, Bast thought that I was simply being deliberately obtuse or even rude about not recognising people, and that my dislike of TV/movies/etc was a weird oddity.

As near as I can tell, most people have no idea that this continuum of ability to recognise people even exists; and if your seating neighbour was someone who recognises people immediately and forever, and you're not, she may well have failed to understand that these people are still strangers to you.

That said, even if that's the case, it's rude of her not to take into account the possibility that you might not make friends as quickly as she (presumably) does. There are a quadrillion reasons for people to be 'slower-than-her' to make friends!

[MoonCat]

Bast has an INCREDIBLE ability to perceive and recognise faces and people.

I was just reading an article the other day about law enforcement people who have this ability! They actually call them Super Recognizers. They can remember faces in every detail years after seeing them, even if they see the person only once, briefly. Fascinating ability.

[Seshat]

Assuming that the human ability to recognise faces is a bell curve, I would assume that Bast would be beyond one standard deviation, maybe two, along the 'can recognise' side.

Me? Beyond one or two along the 'can't'. Why do you think I prefer communicating in text?

[Kaylyn]

Seshat, do you officially suffer from prosopagnosia, or is it just a slightly more atypical version of the "bad with faces" thing? Just curious.

[Seshat]

I've never asked a psychologist or psychiatrist to diagnose my 'bad with faces' thing; so I have no idea whether or not I actually suffer prosopagnosia. (rough translation: face-blindness, or face-un-memory)

Web self-diagnosis stuff says I do have prosopagnosia, but I can trust that about as far as Kanalah can stuff a real, physical quilt down the intatubes for me.