When you sit to dine with a ruler, note well what (or who) is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.  Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive (Proverbs 23:1-3).

It was fairly early in our relationship -- long before engagement or marriage -- that I almost blew it over a piece of strawberry cheesecake.  Marci and I had just finished eating dinner at a little Italian place.  I had filled up on pasta and their all-you-can-eat breadsticks (having downed about 12 of them over the course of our meal), but we were still enjoying our conversation so much that we decided to get some dessert:  one piece of strawberry cheesecake, for the two of us to share.  It was delicious, though I'm afraid I didn't really take the time to savor it, or to savor the moment with my date.  Instead, I just ate as much of the cheesecake as I could, almost viewing Marci more as competition than companionship.  Between bites (and during bites), I continued conversation with Marci; but I'm embarrassed to remember how little it was about Marci and how much it was about the cheesecake.  Worst of all, when the last bite of cheesecake had been eaten, leaving only crumbs and trace amounts of strawberry sauce on the plate, I committed the coup de gras:  I picked up the plate, right in front of my date and in the middle of a public restaurant, and I started to lick off the last remnants from the plate!

Fortunately, Marci reprimanded me immediately with sufficient severity that I've never attempted something like that again -- and even more fortunately, she didn't walk out on me after such a show of selfishness and gluttony.  But the moment lives on in our family's aural history, laughingly dusted off every time similar circumstances demand a retelling of the embarrassing old stories.

I'm glad that our cheesecake story has a happy, harmless ending.  But reading Proverbs 23:1-3, I'm reminded that it could have ended up a lot worse.  The truth is that I was a selfish, gluttonous, inconsiderate person, back when I was 18 years old and first learning to love the woman who would one day become my wife!  My dining habits were a sad reflection of larger patterns in my life that would indeed have to be consciously and painfully worked out of my life over the next couple of decades (and, to some degree, in decades still to come).  I was immature in my restaurant etiquette because I was immature in life.  As I think about all this, I wonder if there really is something to the "going out to dinner" part of a dating relationship.  Could it be that the way we go after the food on our plates demonstrates something about the way that we go after other things in life?  I think it may well be.  Perhaps on the subconscious level, but nevertheless telling.  I actually believe that it's no accident that dates and business meetings often happen over meals -- because these are subtle indicators that help us to size each other up, for better, for worse.  The food part of it all is actually quite deceptive because it's not about the food at all; it's about us as persons.  So like King Solomon, I encourage you to check yourself the next time you find yourself in a restaurant with someone whom you may wish to impress.

Hold yourself hostage at knife-point, if you must, but whatever you do -- don't pick up that plate of crumbs and sauce, and do not lick it like a dog.  I can just about guarantee you:  the relationship is more important than the cheesecake.  At least that's what I've been learning.