Dinner with Neil Sedaka

One of my favorite memories from our trip to Istanbul was the dinner we had at this little place called Lokal. It wasn’t that the food was so good, but we had such a good time. For starters, the menu came inside this Neil Sedaka record cover. I laughed so hard when I saw it, and heaven knows how they acquired it. (The whole joint seemed very multimedia-focused, as they brought us our check inside a DVD case). But the best part of dinner was that we decided, over a gigantic slice of cake, to try to pick each other up, as if we had just met. I would really recommend this as a hilarious game for any couples out there, since you have access to limitless information about each other. Eric said things like, “So, lately I’ve been really interested in maps and interstitial spaces…and Dostoevsky.” After I stopped laughing I said, “Well, I’ve been thinking a lot these past few weeks about the Idaho Stop and cognitive biases…and machine learning.” I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time, and this little game has the added bonus of making you feel really known and loved by your significant other–it’s touching to see that they notice and care about all the millions of little interests that make you who you are. So, even if you can’t get a hold of Neil Sedaka, I highly recommend this kind of dinner. And maybe you can play this in the background.