Breaking A Social Norm

This assignment was very intriguing to me.  I have always been a person to try and break or bend cultural stereotypes and norms.  But one of the examples hit home to me on a personal level.  The activity I chose to do was "eat dessert before dinner."  Now I understand this is not a very extreme experiment, but this choice was sure to give me feedback from my friends.

I called some friends to go out to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings.  After looking at the menu and analyzing each food choice the waitress approached the table and proceeded to ask me, "What would you like to eat?."  I analyzed the menu one last time and flipped it over to the dessert section and said, "Ill take some of the chocolate cake please, and eight boneless wings.  But could you please bring me the cake first?"  She (the waitress) looked confused but nodded her head in agreement and  continued to take everyone else's orders.  After gathering the menus from our table she looked at me and asked, "Are you sure you do not want your entree first sir?"  I shook my head and said, "No thank you."

After dinner was over I asked my friends and the waitress what they thought about me breaking the social norm of having to eat your entree before considering order or eating dessert and these were the reactions:
"I thought it was quite odd and assumed you have already eaten a meal until you asked for wings too.  But its not my job to tell a customer how to order or what to eat so I had to comply even with confusion."- BWW waitress
"I thought it was supposed to be a sarcastic joke of some sorts, but when you did it I just laughed."- Joe (friend)
"I was positive that you just ate something before and only wanted dessert first, but I was just confused and thought you were weird for ordering backwards.  It just didn't seem normal." - Corey (friend)

So just as I suspected I had mixed reactions but the statement that stood out to me was from my friend Corey stating, "It just didn't seem normal."  This goes to show how an average person perceives nonmaterial culture.  For those who are confused, nonmaterial culture refers to all nonphysical products of society that are created over time and shared: knowledge, beliefs, customs, values, morals, symbols, and so on (Newman 100).  As you can see breaking a "normal" custom such as eating your main course before dessert brings mixed reactions from bystanders.

I enjoyed this assignment and it made me realize how stuck in our ways we really are as a society.  Doing something differently ultimately creates some change in society or it is ridiculed until the idea is wiped away.  I like to think of breaking social norms is a way of expressing yourself and being able to fight for your personal beliefs, but don't be surprised if people do not accept your idea.

Referring to my opening paragraph I said this hit home to me, but you may ask why?  Well after more than forty years of running our family business, we lost someone close.  He was our accountant for the longest time and was a great friend to my father, Bill Van Wychen.  But what is the correlation?  Whenever my dad would go to lunch with Bill, my dad said he would do something strange...  He would ALWAYS order dessert before his meal.  But what his reasoning?  He said, "You never know when it could be your last day so you might as well enjoy the good things in life while you are still here."  And Bill did just that.  He did that for every meal until he ultimately passed away from cancer.  Rest in peace Bill, you are missed.