Why I’m Fearful of The Fast Food Checkout Line

Ian Miller | 10/08/2024

“How do you want your eggs?” The waitress smiles expectantly. 

What are the options? I don’t ever remember ordering eggs before at a diner. I’m too embarrassed to ask anyone else at the table so I quietly slide my phone out of my pocket and Google, “How to order eggs”. When it was my turn to order, I knew how to order my eggs. Sigh of relief. 

It’s not just in sit-down restaurants that I find myself feeling a little anxious when it comes time to order. Scanning the dazzling array of options at a fast food restaurant triggers me as well, even after 11 years of being back in the States. Self checkouts are so much less intimidating since I can see the options and choose without feeling like I should know what I want and making people wait behind me. 

It’s not so much the overwhelm of the options (I typically love options!) or the intimidation of standing before someone I’ve never met (after all, I’m fairly comfortable striking up a conversation with a stranger). So what triggers the anxiety and uncomfortableness when facing the simple task of ordering food at a diner or fast food line? 

It’s the innate sense that I still don’t fully grasp the social norms around me when I’m expected to. A sense of being out of my element in the places that I look like I should. And the reality that I feel most at home, most comfortable, in the social settings where I’m least expected to. 

So what do I do when I sit down at a Mexican restaurant and the waiter greets me in broken English? Sometimes I play the part that’s expected of me and I order in English without letting on that I speak Spanish. Other times I surprise them with Spanish—and then have to tell my story, justifying my Spanish fluency. That’s why more times than not, I prefer to just order in English even though something within me wants to connect in Spanish with the perfect stranger in front of me. 

Sound complicated? It’s normal life for a TCK. Always feeling like I don’t quite fit anywhere. But yet feeling like I can almost fit in everywhere. After all, the globe is my home.

How about you? What are the social norms that most trigger your sense of not quite belonging?