If he cheats at Cracker Barrel, he’ll eventually cheat you, too

By David McElroy · March 21, 2019

I was still eating when the couple at the table next to me got up to leave. As they were about to walk away from the table, the woman asked the man, “What about the tip?” The man didn’t stop.

“I don’t live around here,” he said. “I’ll never see her again, so it wouldn’t do me any good to tip her.”

The woman said nothing and they walked away. I presume he planned to pay for their meals at the front counter instead of sneaking out and saving his cash.

I hate everything about tipping. It’s a terrible system. I wish servers were just compensated by a restaurant — as is the case in most of the world — and the cost were included in the price of the meal.

But that’s not the way the system works here. Servers make most of their pay in tips. If you refuse to tip a server — without very good cause — you are stealing from the worker. And that says something about your character.

I can’t be sure of the relationship between the man and woman I saw having that exchange, but it certainly appeared to be a romantic relationship. And it made me wonder — again — why so many people tend to ignore this sort of red flag in relationships.

If someone treats service workers poorly, that behavior is almost certainly going to show up in the way he (or she) treats you. But I’ve heard people defend a partner by pretending it doesn’t matter.

“Yeah, he can be a jerk to a server sometimes,” she might said, “but he’s never treated me that way. So I can ignore it as long as he’s sweet to me.”

But this shortsighted view ignores the simple fact that a manipulator can treat anybody well when he’s trying to get something from the person. If someone wants a relationship with you, he’s probably on his best behavior for awhile.

But the way he treats people who can do nothing for him tells you who he really is.

If a man cheats a server — especially on the excuse that he’ll never see that person again — it tells you very plainly that he’s willing to treat people decently only when he can get something from the other person. It tells you that he has no interest in doing the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do.

If a man will cheat a server, he will eventually cheat you in some way. Maybe he’ll wad you up and throw you away when he no longer needs you. Maybe he’ll cheat on your when he believes you have no choice but to stay with him.

The kind of person you want is one who has an inner code of conduct that requires him to do what’s good and honorable whether it does him any good in the moment or not.

Those people can be hard to find, but they’re worth holding onto when you find one.

If someone mistreats those who are powerless to help him — and powerless to hurt him — you’re seeing a preview of how he will eventually treat you. Because this is who he really is.

Run away from this sort of person. He’s not worth having in your life, no matter how much you think you need him in the moment.

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Tyler Barnes will never be a basketball star. He probably peaked as a star high school player in Louisville, Ky. But for the last four years, he’s been a walk-on player for the University of Alabama. He’s a chemical engineering major with lots of academic honors who rides the bench because he loves being part of a team. He sometimes gets into games with a minute or two to go, but only if Alabama has a big lead. This Saturday, it was senior day for Alabama basketball, so it was his last chance to play in Coleman Coliseum. Alabama Coach Nate Oats says that one of the team starter’s came to him an hour before the game started — and fellow senior Alex Reese asked Oats if Barnes could start in his place for this one game. Even though the game was huge for Alabama, which is ranked No. 6 in the country and trying to wrap up an SEC title, Oats agreed. Barnes started and played the first three minutes, grabbing what was only the fourth rebound of his career and missing his only shot. Barnes has a great future as an engineer, but you’ll never again hear from him as a basketball player. For three shining minutes Saturday, though, he was a starter for a top-10 college basketball team — and his parents were in the stands from Kentucky to see it. There’s a lot of ugliness in college basketball right now, but this story makes me happy.

It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me that night, but she didn’t know it, so she was terrified. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. If you’d like to know more about Lucy’s journey from scared dog to brave queen of the household, here’s something I wrote after her first year with me. I’m hoping this girl will have many more happy years with me.

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

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