A simple meal together can be a better use of the evening than separate efforts to make everything perfect.

The elaborate version of an evening often costs the thing it was meant to produce. Two people cooking, tidying, and getting it right can spend the whole night in adjacent rooms working, and sit down at ten too tired to talk. The food was never the point of eating together. Effort spent on the setting is subtracted from the time inside it.

Choose one night this week and make it deliberately plain: eggs, toast, whatever is already in the house. Put the effort into sitting down earlier instead. See how much longer you stay at the table.