A Feature on Food Waste: The Terrors of Dating

Taking a few minutes out of your day to read the prose piece Food Waste, featured in the most recent edition of the Silhouette, will surely not be a waste of your time. It’s not your typical getting-ready-for-a-first-date story, and I think that’s what makes it so relatable. Any story that begins with the dialogue “Shit,” has got to be leading somewhere promising, right? You really begin to feel for this girl as she’s trying to stop her leg from bleeding from a shaving cut, while debating what’s the easiest way to not get blood on her carpet. I never would have thought about writing something like that—but the details add a realistic flair that can sometimes be hard to find in prose.

The genuine voice makes the character of the girl herself seem like you know her personally, as if she’s one of your close friends making it easy to put yourself in her place; we’ve all been there! Some guy asks you out on a first date and you’re stuck beforehand playing out twenty different scenarios of how you might set yourself on fire over a romantic candle-lit dinner. This short prose piece perfectly captures the side that the guy doesn't see first, an imperfect but wonderful mess. Her panic culminates as the guy sends her texts about nearing the restaurant. Her anxiety is evident in the barrage of worried thoughts that floods the fifth paragraph, humorously debating the drawbacks and advantages of drinking the IPA she wants or the vodka soda that will make her breath smell better. Everything leads up to the last moment, when she has to finally decide to step out the door to go meet him. Read the piece for yourself to find out if she does!