The question that cancels dinner

Somebody wants to take their parents out in Riyadh for an anniversary, and the plan dies in the asking.

The first questions are useful. Which night suits them. Whether their father can manage stairs. Whether the place is quiet enough to hear each other. Each of these has an answer, and each answer moves the evening closer.

Then comes the other kind. Is this really the best restaurant in the city? Should we not wait until that new place everyone is talking about has opened? What if the food is good but not memorable? Will they compare it with the dinner a cousin hosted last year?

These do not have answers. They have the shape of questions, so they demand to be dealt with, but anything you say back opens another one. There is always a better place, a more memorable night, a cousin who did it differently. They are not puzzles to be solved. They are a way of stopping.

What they feed on is the wish to get it perfect, and the quiet fear of being judged for falling short. Give them a few days and the anniversary has passed, and the parents had dinner at home.

The useful response is not a better answer. It is to notice which kind of question has arrived and decline it. Is this the best restaurant in Riyadh? Possibly not, and that is not what tonight is for. Tonight is for a quiet table, a father who does not have to climb stairs, and two people who have been married a long time.

Every hour spent on a question that cannot be answered is an hour taken from the dinner that could have happened.