baking a pancake brain

the final thoughts of a 25yo chloe

In the cold months of 2020, socializing in New York required placing an overly-large dinner reservation to simulate a bar. We often placed ten-person reservations for our COVID social pod. Though we wanted to recreate the standing room of a bar, the seating arrangements cemented you to one or two conversational partners for the entirety of the meal.

As Omnicron rears and puts us back to that pre-vaccine place of wary awareness of your neighbors (both in hygiene and topical similarities), my roommate found herself at a similarly large reservation a few weeks ago. A long table for twelve where the two ends of the tables had a magnetic opposition.

And my roommate, luckily enough, was caught in a conversation with a man who had a particular argument, not for her response but for her edification: “Guys’ brains are like waffles, and girls’ brains are like pancakes, because they can’t compartmentalize.”

oh no my brain is showing!

This man worked at Ernst & Young in 2018 when they hosted a semi…