The fiancée and I went out to dinner the other night. Nothing fancy, just hit the Olive Garden for some breadsticks and pasta. Beats cooking. So we did our wait in the lobby and finally the little buzzer thingie went off to let us know our table was ready. They took us in the back and gave us a booth. As we sat down, I noticed a couple sitting in the booth behing my fiancée. Nothing remarkable, just noted there were people there.

So we look at the menus, pick our dishes, start devouring salad and breadsticks. I’m talking to the fiancé and, looking past her head, I notice that the man seated behind her, with his back to us, has an iPod-style earpiece in his ear. I roll my eyes, figuring he’s one of those cell-phone douches who never takes his combo earpiece and mic off in case he has an important call and can’t be bothered to stop shoveling food into his face before disrupting everyone else’s dinner. But at least he’s not talking into it now. In fact… he’s not talking at all. I realize he hasn’t said a word to his companion the entire time we’ve been here.

Now I’m intrigued. I keep an eye on the duo and, sure enough, neither of them are talking. Understand, this isn’t some elderly couple who have been married for nine hundred years, heard each other’s stories over and over, and just have nothing else to say to one another while waiting for death. This is a youngish, mid-30s couple who should still have lots to talk about. Yet here they are, at dinner, completely ignoring each other. Looking closer, I see that he’s not wearing a single cell-phone earpiece, but a pair of earphones. Is he listening to his iPod at dinner? In a restaurant? Man, his wife must be super-peeved. Wait… I can see, barely through her long hair, that she’s wearing headphones, too. These two came out to dinner just to listen to music?

Now that shows the problem with jumping to conclusions. I had the situation totally wrong. Turns out they did not come to a restaurant just to listen to personal music players. They actually came to Olive Garden to watch movies. By craning my neck a bit, I could see that they were both watching movies, he on a PSP, she on an iPod. Each person was holding their device in one hand and eating with the other. And I had to wonder: Why? Why would you go out to a semi-decent restaurant, with a loved one, and then just stare at an electronic screen the entire night? Why not just order dinner to go and eat in front of the TV if you’re so desperate to watch something? Could they just not agree on what movie to watch? Can you be so tired of someone’s company that you can’t even suffer through a single dining experience without an electronic diversion?

They left slightly before we did, having never spoken a single word to each other. The waitress even had to wave to get their attention when it came time to pay the check. I watched them walk out, no longer staring at their devices, but still wearing their headphones and not speaking. I reached across the table and took my fianceée’s hand. She smiled back at me and we were quiet for a while, too.

Somehow, that was okay.