I've been married to my wife for fifteen years, which is apparently not long enough for me to have learned when to stop talking.
Some time ago, I suggested we try a restaurant called The Melting Pot.
She wasn't familiar with the place, so I did what comes naturally to someone who's spent a good part of his professional life in marketing: I tried to explain the product.
It's a fondue restaurant, I told her. That wasn't much help.
So I went straight to the experience. There's a pot of melted cheese, and you dip bread and other things into it.
I don't remember exactly when I lost her. I do know that by the time I'd finished describing the cheese, the idea was dead.
My wife grew up in the Philippines. Cheese isn't foreign to Filipino food, of course, but an evening organized around a pot of it wasn't exactly a compelling proposition to her. I was trying to describe a night out. She was evaluating what I'd proposed putting in front of her.
And she had heard enough.
I've spent years learning how to communicate with people. How to introduce an unfamiliar idea. How to anticipate objections. How to explain why something might be worth trying.
At home, this expertise has a rather uneven record.
The curious thing is that I can recognize the moment my wife has made up her mind. I can see that no further explanation is required. And yet some part of me remains convinced that the missing piece is simply a little more information.
It isn't.
We love Korean barbecue, where we happily cook our own dinner at the table. So the objection wasn't that a restaurant was asking us to do some of the work. Nor was it that we dislike trying new things.
It was, apparently, the cheese.
I have eaten at The Melting Pot exactly once in my life, long before this conversation, and remember almost nothing about it. Which makes my determination to sell the experience even more peculiar. I wasn't recommending a treasured memory. I was pitching an idea.
My wife had already decided.
I was still explaining.
Fifteen years into marriage, you might think I'd have learned the difference between a conversation and a closed meeting.
I'm working on it.