When my girlfriend and I went to a Thai restaurant while on holiday, they had several appetizing pictures on their menu cover. We were wondering about one dish in particular, and, after scouring the menu for a good while, we both made a guess, but neither of us was certain.
So, to make sure, when the waitress came around, we pointed at the dish in question and asked: “Which one is that?” She showed us in the menu, and I was happy to find out I had guessed the right one – but the lesson here is not the guessing, it’s the asking.
In the past, this might have been the kind of situation in which I would be too shy to ask or tell myself it wouldn’t really matter, pick another dish, and move on. But why? When children want to know something, they just ask. They never concern themselves with the appropriateness of the question, let alone if it might sound embarrassing.
The thing is that, even after we’ve grown up, most questions are still appropriate, and almost none of them are embarrassing. It’s only in our heads that every tiny bit of ignorance seems like a big deal.
If you want to know something, just ask. And if you can’t guess the food from the pictures, just point to them and ask: “Which one is that?”