He bought her salad

"How many, ma'am?"
"We're just one."
"Alright, right this way please."

Among other things, I'm going to tell you about that woman and how she's changed me.

Of the hundreds of people that I have seated in my past month at Something Differerent, the number of couples that have opted to sit side-by-side rather than across from one another I can count on one hand. Only four couples have done so. Which begs the question, for me at least, why? I asked my boss: he admitted he'd never wondered and deferred my wondering mind to a waitress. She suggested that people prefer to look at one another, that only the really touchy-feely types (the kind that are likely to do bedroom things with their hands and ankles under the shade of the burgundy tablecloths) that only they want to sit so near. What she said, essentially, is that the more emotionally and intellectually near a couple is, the less they feel the need to be physically near, to be at one another's fingertips- a breath away.
I do not understand.
Why is this?
I don't see why a deterioration of the desire to be near physically should be required in order for two people to grow closer in other, less tangible (or is it more tangible?), ways, but that's just me. I already hold my truth to be self-evident. As for others, I guess I'll just have to start setting menus side-by-side and see how many more loves are like to stay where I put them, or shy away.

But that's not what you expected to read. Oh dear. Disappointment. Do I dare appologize? No, I do not. I haven't lied to you. There was indeed a man who bought a woman a salad, which constituted the entirity of her meal, and I will tell you about them- just not today. I have pressing matters to attend to.