Every time my fiancé Brad and I walk into a restaurant, the host or hostess leads us to a table and puts down two menus facing across from each other.

It’s how the majority of couples sit — I get it. But instead, one of us grabs our menu and our place setting and swings over next to the other. Yep, we’re same-siders.

Go ahead and laugh — our friends think it’s weird, servers subtly shoot us a look when we do it. But same-siding is actually the most underrated way to approach date-night seating. Here’s why.

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You already do this every night at home

Don’t pretend you actually use your dining room table. This is a bold-faced lie, and I won’t accept it. Dining room tables are for holiday dinners and holding junk mail only.

We all know that you actually eat dinner sitting next to each other on the couch, chatting and catching up on whatever show you’ve been binging.

I hate to break it to you but this is same-siding, you’re just not doing it in public.

Welcome to the dark side. We’re glad to have you.

You both get the primo view

You dropped serious cash to eat dinner at some trendy place with a killer view.

One side of the table gets to look at the beautiful sunset, and the other side watches the bathroom entrance.  When you same-side, your partner doesn’t have to pretend to be all considerate as they let you get to enjoy the A+ view, while they’re stuck looking at a cream-colored wall with some weird piece of artwork they don’t understand.

You can actually hear each other

Restaurants are loud. Nobody likes a romantic meal where you’re basically yelling across the table.

And you certainly can’t talk about personal topics from different sides of the table, because as soon as you do the restaurant will hit a lull and you’ll be yelling about something you wish you weren’t yelling about.

You can easily enjoy people watching

You’re watching another couple fight/aggressively make out/behave in an otherwise inappropriate way and are trying to discreetly tell your partner the details of what’s going down when they can see none of it.

Or, worse, you’re trying to get them to accurately relay the details to you without you having to turn all the way around to look at the pair in question.

When you embrace same-siding, you can both have a front-row seat to whatever’s unfolding in front of you.

It fast tracks you past long lines

There’s a two-hour wait for a table at the trendy new restaurant you’ve been dying to try. You’re starving. The hostess wants to know if bar seating is okay. You can sit right now if it is. Of course it is.

It taps into your physical touch needs

If your Love Language is physical touch, you can scratch that itch without having to awkwardly lean over the table and hold hands like you’re the lead characters in a cheesy romantic comedy.

If you don’t know about Love Languages, hit x on this article and go read this book immediately. Go. Goodbye.