Sitting in a booth

Last few times I've gone out with my girlfriends and met up with a couple of guys, I've noticed the tendency men have of squishing me and my girlfriends on the inside of booths. I had gotten pretty frustrated. To me it seemed like a type of control. They were between us and the rest of the restaurant, bar, or world. They could determine who we did or didn't talk to just because they were blocking access to us. I felt significantly trapped, at times, and definitely felt like it wasn't an ideal situation. But then I went out to dinner last night with a few of my girlfriends. Instead of sitting on the inside of the booth, I sat on the aisle side. I expected to feel more freedom and, in some ways, I did, but I also noticed an enormous downside to sitting on the outside.

Particularly, depending on what type of atmosphere you are in, sitting on the outside of the booth can be limiting. As you sit and talk to the other people at your table, you have to turn in towards the wall to be able to address everyone. As you do this, you shut out the outside world and are left only with the option of looking at the other people at your table. On the other hand, the person sitting on the inside of the booth can turn their back to the wall and look at at everything happening in the rest of the room. Certainly there is a person between them and everything else going on, but at least the inside person has visual access to everything. In some ways, this ability to see what else is out there is empowering because if the person on the outside of the booth isn't being interesting enough, you don't have to pay attention.