On a recent Saturday night, three of my friends and I went to a small Mediterranean restaurant where the menu encourages lots of back-and-forth with the waiters. For many of us, items like bronzini and tsoureki require translation, which, in turn, builds a bit of rapport. Our waiter, who resembled New Age musician Yanni, was animated and likable, engaging each of us in small talk while decoding the menu. All was going well until he delivered a basket of bread.

As I recall, the four of us were busily talking, as diners are wont to do, when one of us mentioned the word “gynecologist.” The waiter arrived, bread in hand, just in time to overhear it. He didn’t simply place the bread on the table and leave; he opted instead for a bit of showboating. His eyebrows jumped. He backed off theatrically, in mock astonishment at what he had just overheard.

Would “podiatrist” have elicited the same response? But never mind.

Our server had broken a cardinal rule of waiting tables ”“ namely, inserting himself into our conversation. Suddenly, he was no longer aiding and abetting our dining experience; he had plunked himself smack in the middle of it.

It was clear that he was being playful and hammy ”“ he meant no disrespect. We all just laughed it off. 

But somehow that exchange managed to unleash his inner bad boy.

He proceeded to tell an off-color joke, with apologies before, during and after. He divulged how his boss wouldn’t appreciate this sort of humor.

Nor did we.

One wonders how such misguided conduct begins, finds a perch, and even a place of employment. True, restaurants have long provided a second stage for underpaid, under-worked actors. But that still doesn’t account for the oversharing part. For that, one needs only to consider Facebook and the world of social media. There the lines of discretion aren’t just blurred; they barely exist. The old 1960s adage, “There’s no such thing as strangers, only friends you haven’t met,” takes on new irony.

Nowadays, we have “Facebook friends,” which often have as much to do with friendship as, well, the relation between bronzini and gynecologists.

Which gets back to our waiter. It’s a fine line that waiters tread when talking with diners. I’m not suggesting that a server’s personality be expunged from the exchange ”“ think of the clever waiters who have saved an otherwise dull dinner conversation; only that there’s an art to chatting with diners that requires a certain finesse.

Mind you, I like a good risqué joke as much as the next person. But I’d rather hear it in a setting that requires no apology.

— Joan Silverman’s work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune and Dallas Morning News. She lives in Kennebunk.