When I was a child, I remember the look of horror on my uncle’s face when one of my sticky-fingered cousins took a swig from his can of soda. He declared that he could no longer drink it because someone else’s saliva had touched it. None of us said “germaphobe weirdo” out loud, but we were all thinking it. Our disbelief deepened when he abandoned the can and opened a new one. This was the early 1990s, when wasting fizzy drinks felt like a serious offence; they were a treat, and our household belonged firmly to the “you will finish what you start” school of parenting.
Thirty-five years later, I have realised that I am now that uncle. And it is not just drinks: my discomfort extends to food as well. This may surprise some people, given that I am Indian and that sharing food is central to so many of our family rituals. At home, we serve dishes in large pots, family-style, with a separate spoon for each one. That kind of sharing is entirely fine because there are clear, unspoken rules. No one double-dips, and no one uses a spoon that has been in their mouth to serve from the communal dish or scoop food from another person’s plate.
The problem begins when people with different habits gather and someone decides it is acceptable to return a used spoon to the main dish or transfer food from one plate to another. Recently, I went to a chic restaurant: the sort of place with only five dishes on the menu and delicate glassware. Since giving up alcohol a year ago, I have become much more adventurous with dessert, and because I am in the wonderfully defiant “I will do exactly as I please” phase of perimenopause, I ordered a crème brûlée as a starter. The waitress, in what I privately considered an act of aggression, asked: “Two spoons?” despite my giving absolutely no indication that I wished to share.
I was with new friends, so I did the British thing and said yes, even though every part of me wanted to say no. When the two spoons arrived, however, I could no longer sustain the charade. As my friend raised her spoon, I told her she had to take the first bite. “But then you won’t get to crack the top of the brûlée,” she said. I patiently explained that, at 45, I would survive the disappointment. When I saw her preparing to object again, I became more direct: “I really don’t want to double-dip because I’m conscious about germs.”
There was, inevitably, an awkward silence. I still regret nothing.
The pandemic undoubtedly made me more vigilant, especially after watching so many people catch Covid after sharing food from one another’s plates. But I had also noticed a pattern: I often fell ill after sharing drinks with friends who would insist I take a sip, then ask to try mine. Those viruses would leave me flat for two weeks, and now I refuse outright. It does not matter if the drink is made with the cordial of a flower that blooms once every 20 years. If it has touched your mouth and you are not my lover or partner, it is not touching mine.
“But I’m fine,” a friend protested when I refused to try the braised cauliflower on her plate, muttering that I was being precious. Two days later, she messaged to say she had caught a cold. I replied: “Vindication!” She did not respond.
