I was meeting a friend for dinner at 8 p.m. when I got this text at 5:30 p.m.: “Hey there, I’m actually in your area now, mind if we meet on the early side?”
Did I mind? I didn’t mind at all! In fact, I prefer an early dinner. I know it’s unfashionable and brands me as irretrievably uncool, but a 5:30 p.m. dinner suits me perfectly: It’s easier on the digestion, usually less crowded, and it means I can be in bed by 9, 10 at the latest.
That’s what I thought to myself, anyway. But what I texted in response was: “What? Are we farmers now? But, sure, I guess. Very early for me but okay if that’s more convenient.”
Of course, I was lying. But I didn’t want to seem like one of those sad, unfun types who eats early and heads to bed by 9:30, even though I am one of those types. What I prefer to do is project the aura of a man who is effortlessly cool, who dines at an aristocratic 8ish and knows how to pronounce “Gstaad.” Someone who occasionally wears a cravat and has never eaten a Hot Pocket. What I am, in fact, is someone who prefers the early bird special. Some kind of unsophisticated bumpkin, an undercover hayseed. A rube still deep in the closet.
And what’s worse, we’re now two weeks into Lent, and this is the year I decided to give up something truly challenging for the season. This year, I have vowed to stop acting like I’m too cool for school. This year, I told myself, I will eat dinner early, get to bed at a reasonable time, and let my uncool flag fly. In other words, for Lent, I have decided to be my true and authentic self. But clearly, when the opportunity came to do just that, I crumbled like a coward.
In past Lents, I have forgone alcohol, carbs, cigars, all sorts of vices and treats, and the truth is it’s always been pretty easy. In the first place, Lent, technically, excludes Sundays, which means in past Lenten seasons, the Lord’s Day, for me, has been an orgy of tobacco, cocktails, and lasagna. And also: It’s only 40 days! I start counting them down by week one, and honestly, it’s not that hard to wait a few more days for a Montecristo, in cigar or sandwich versions. A martini (gin, up, with a twist) is so much more delicious and satisfying when it caps off a disciplined and successful Lent I’m surprised I don’t do Lent twice or three times a year.
This year, though, I was excited by the idea of doing something truly difficult and character-building. Stop pretending to know things you don’t, I declared to myself. Stop acting like some raffish European duke. I knew what I had to do next.
The minute I sat down at the table, I confessed to my friend. “You know what?” I said. “I’m really glad we’re eating early. I love to eat early. I’m glad you were in the area this soon. I don’t know why I made that crack about your being a farmer. I’m sorry.”
He laughed and waved it off. In fact, he said, he is also an early eater, and he always feels secretly judged by his more sophisticated friends who eat dinner at 8 and sometimes even 9 o’clock! We both wondered at the craziness of that — eating so late, plus a couple of glasses of wine, how does anyone get up the next morning? And we resolved to support each other, unashamedly, as co-presidents of the Early Bird Dinner Club.
“I’ve got your back with this Lent challenge,” he told me. “And I know you’ll have my back with mine.”
Which was the moment the waiter came to take our drink order and I discovered what he had given up for Lent.
“I’ll have a Diet Coke,” he said. “No alcohol for me until Easter.”
Now, the right thing for me to do was to order a sparkling water or something “supportive” like that. But one of the joys of eating dinner at 5:30 is that there’s plenty of nighttime left to sleep it off, whatever “it” turns out to be.
“I’ll have a martini, gin, up, with a twist,” I said to the waiter. And then I turned to my friend. “You won’t drink a glass of wine with dinner? What are you? Some kind of peasant?”
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Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and he is the co-founder of Ricochet.com.