1) Don’t book a restaurant where the view is better than the food.

2) A good view is not a “high stakes” concern.

OP, I have gotten like this a couple times in the past couple years, and it was very much due to putting really high expectations on one activity because I felt like it was The Only Time I could look forward to something. This was especially hard coming out of Covid when we were ready to "get back to normal," but a series of trips, plans with friends, etc got canceled because the kids kept getting sick once schools went back in person (missed my college reunion due to actually getting covid from a kid as well). I just felt like I had nothing to look forward to and would never leave my house again.

It got better this past year as the illnesses have been spaced a little further apart, and we've been able to do a couple of weekend trips, dates, performances, and other things. I've been spending more on "experiences" and probably need to rein it in at some point, but it's helped me find my emotional footing again and setbacks don't seem as disastrous. So I hope you can just plan more to look forward to and not put so much weight on a single experience.

Anonymous wrote:OP, the restaurant told you that you booked too late for the view. That's the lesson to be learned here. Start planning early for the best possible experience.

That’s not the lesson, actually, because the issue is a pattern, not this particular evening. You can’t control your way to perfection for everything; the issue is how one deals with disappointment (rather than how to try to control life such that disappointment is never felt).

I can be like this sometimes. I know it. The way I would have handled it is to go to a different restaurant where I had no expectations.

I have epic events when I have zero expectations and I am in a silly and giggly mood. My mood is contagious for my DH and kids. Everyone relaxes and then magic happens.

That is the secret sauce!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, IDK whether this will resonate, but in both of the situations you have described here the scenario has not just been that you want a peak experience made even peak-ier—it is that you are unhappy specifically because you think other people who are present are getting something better or faster than you are.

If that is in fact a common thread, worth noticing that they are distinct situations and modifying the latter involves some different work than modifying the former.

You're right, this is exactly it. It's really hard for me to get over perceived injustice. Like, if no one gets a view because it's foggy, whatever, it's bad luck. But to watch other people getting what I want and can't get is really hard for me.

Another post said I'm like a victim of Instagram, and it's true. I have really tried to step away from watching other people's perfect lives on social media, but you can't really get away from seeing them in real life.

(Side note, the table in front of us was this sugar daddy in his late 60s and his sugar baby, so to see my partial view, I had to also watch some nasty goings-on between them, and it was just objectively unpleasant).

Actually OP I understand where you are coming from. And I think that there is a whole lot missed in this scenario.

See unlike others I think and even have witnessed that when a complaint is made by one and then backed up by a second that in fact you get more traction. It doesn’t require anger but if you both are expressing disappointment and then asking for a remedy, then it actually does make more of a difference bc it is harder for it to be ignored. It doesn’t mean you get the remedy you want but my observation is it gets taken more seriously. So in that regard, yeah, I think if the DH has chimed in then the waiter may have been compelled to see if any change in seating arrangement was possible. And as a benefit, for some, just having the spouse back them up can make the difference in how they feel about the issue and even not feel as bad if they don’t get any remedy.

The approach of sitting and stewing quietly is annoying. It’s better to say out loud wow I am really disappointed and feel cheated bc I didn’t know about making an earlier reservation and just be sad about it for a few minutes instead of just stewing silently. Of course then after a few minutes you have to be able to move on and appreciate what you do have and what you can control.

Lackluster service is something you can improve by being more picky. And people are free to disagree but again observe anytime you are in a restaurant and despite what any server might post here, the picky and nice people they pay more attention.

You booked too late for the best views. Compounded by the fact you are an American in France. It just wasn’t going to happen. The French are sticklers like this. Sounds totally normal. Getting in a huff only reinforced stereotypes and made the rest of your time there less ideal than it could have been.

OP, the restaurant told you that you booked too late for the view. That's the lesson to be learned here. Start planning early for the best possible experience.

You cannot orchestrate an “epic” evening. Those things are just magic and chemistry.

One of my most wonderful dining out experiences was with my DH and another couple at a perfectly nice but not “top end” local restaurant. For some reason, we arrived and the energy in the room was happy and buzzing. We miraculously got a corner table by the windows. Our waiter was in high spirits and made great suggestions and we were all rewarded for our slightly adventurous ordering with delicious food we hadn’t had before . The wine was particularly good and the conversation flowed, we all got a little drunk and the air and the lighting and everything just glowed. My friend texted me the next day to exclaim over the evening how beautiful it was. I don’t know why that happened; we’ve been back to that restaurant since and it was good but not that.

Similarly, we’ve taken our kids on some really nice vacations but the magical one they talk about was the low east coast beach trip where the weather was perfect and everyone was in a good mood and the random food we ate was all so good and we saw dolphins repeatedly and everything was just relaxed and easy.

You can’t buy “epic.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is not uncommon for the partner of a catastrophizer to pull in the opposite direction to seek balance.

He was trying to make the best of things. Try it sometime. All you did was guarantee it was going to be a miserable experience. Pouting is never a good look.

Yes my spouse is the negative Nellie and always predicting disaster which means I need to counterbalance him. Esp for the sake of the kids. Usually it’s not as we are doing something it’s his predictions (there will be tons of traffic and we won’t make it; it will be too hot and crowded to enjoy; the kids will complain the entire way on the hike: ds wont be able to manage anything that hard etc; if it’s that cheap how do you know the hotel is nice it’s probably a dump ). It’s exhausting to be around such negativity. I was never a positive person but it’s pushed me to take that role for balance

Sounds like he’s good at planning and you aren’t.

Not PP, but can you explain why you think this?

I think maybe you are equating predicting bad outcomes with taking steps to prevent them. Those are not at all the same thing.

Anonymous wrote:

It is not uncommon for the partner of a catastrophizer to pull in the opposite direction to seek balance.

He was trying to make the best of things. Try it sometime. All you did was guarantee it was going to be a miserable experience. Pouting is never a good look.

Yes my spouse is the negative Nellie and always predicting disaster which means I need to counterbalance him. Esp for the sake of the kids. Usually it’s not as we are doing something it’s his predictions (there will be tons of traffic and we won’t make it; it will be too hot and crowded to enjoy; the kids will complain the entire way on the hike: ds wont be able to manage anything that hard etc; if it’s that cheap how do you know the hotel is nice it’s probably a dump ). It’s exhausting to be around such negativity. I was never a positive person but it’s pushed me to take that role for balance

Sounds like he’s good at planning and you aren’t.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not uncommon for the partner of a catastrophizer to pull in the opposite direction to seek balance.

He was trying to make the best of things. Try it sometime. All you did was guarantee it was going to be a miserable experience. Pouting is never a good look.

That's the word.

It’s not uncommon for the partner of a passive, reactive person to have to repeat things in different ways in order to get help or a response or action.
The passive person escalates all communications by stonewalling or flippant non-remarks.

Anonymous wrote:I clicked on this expecting to see that your husband lost his job, or your entire vacation was canceled because of flight issues, or your basement flooded. And the "high stakes" issues you are "devastated" about are that . . . (i) your table at a nice restaurant wasn't up to your standards, and (ii) because you were noticeably pissy about that, your waitress didn't give you top service?

JFC, OP.

The most absurd thing about this post is hat you want your husband to have the same disproportionate, over-the-top reaction to minor setbacks. No way. He's the rational one here - someone in your family need to be stable, and you clearly ain't that person.

+1 I’m sorry OP, but this simply is not “high stakes.” You are asking your husband to abandon his healthy reaction to join you in your maladaptive one, and be miserable.

It is not uncommon for the partner of a catastrophizer to pull in the opposite direction to seek balance.

He was trying to make the best of things. Try it sometime. All you did was guarantee it was going to be a miserable experience. Pouting is never a good look.

Yes my spouse is the negative Nellie and always predicting disaster which means I need to counterbalance him. Esp for the sake of the kids. Usually it’s not as we are doing something it’s his predictions (there will be tons of traffic and we won’t make it; it will be too hot and crowded to enjoy; the kids will complain the entire way on the hike: ds wont be able to manage anything that hard etc; if it’s that cheap how do you know the hotel is nice it’s probably a dump ). It’s exhausting to be around such negativity. I was never a positive person but it’s pushed me to take that role for balance

Anonymous wrote:It is not uncommon for the partner of a catastrophizer to pull in the opposite direction to seek balance.

He was trying to make the best of things. Try it sometime. All you did was guarantee it was going to be a miserable experience. Pouting is never a good look.

That's the word.