After last week’s ocean of loneliness, I thought that perhaps it was time to admit some basic facts about human nature—strangers in New York do not seem to want to eat lunch with me and asking them fills me with dread. As I headed to Bay Ridge, the end of the R line, I decided upon yet another strategy. I would canvass the streets, asking people what their favorite lunch spot was, and when a consensus emerged, I would go there.

This new plan filled me with fresh optimism and brazenness, and I immediately got a few recommendations for a couple of Irish restaurants on 3^rd Avenue (O’Sullivan’s and Chadwick’s). And then I happened upon John, a sad-eyed Syrian man who considered my question long and hard.

“What country are you from?” he asked.

“Um, America,” I replied.

“No, no, I mean, what kind of food do you eat?” He eyed my dark hair and made a tentative guess. “You like Italian food?”

“I would rather know what restaurants you like around here,” I said.

This made him sigh heavily. “For us, it is different, because we are eating a lot of the Middle Eastern food.”

I assured him this was fine, that I liked falafel and hummus, and the shock of this revelation took a few minutes to wear off. Then he said that he knew a good Middle Eastern place and proceeded to give me the longest set of directions I have ever heard for a destination that was less than two blocks away (“First you will see 91^st Street. This is not the street you want…”) But even when I said I would check it out, John still looked very concerned for me. “I will show you,” he said.

Holy cow! I had stumbled into going to lunch with a stranger after all! Never mind that everything I said made John more uncomfortable. His sighed responses to my babble seemed to translate to: You live where? And this is your job? You want me to do what? But he escorted me to First Oasis, where we sat down at a table, and he pointed out his favorite dishes, both vegetarian (hummus and tabbouleh) and non-vegetarian (lamb shish kebobs). He did, however, refuse to order anything, and eventually left me to my baba gannouj.

The food, by the way, was excellent—the pita was ample and perfectly toasted, the salad crisp, the baba gannouj smoky but not overwhelmingly so. This is, I think, the first restaurant I’ve found in this series that I might make a point of returning to. And even after John took his leave, I was entertained by a television airing Arabic music videos, in which supernaturally pretty women dressed in elaborate costumes sang soulfully, sometimes with large lions in the background.

Okay, so what if John didn’t eat anything, refused to have his picture taken and looked somewhat terrified by the time he left? We had had a real conversation in a real restaurant, and his choice had turned out to be an excellent one. I was counting this as a half-victory, maybe even a three-quarters-victory. To celebrate, I wandered back over to 3^rd Ave. and bought some Italian cookies at Paneantico. Success is sweet.

First Oasis Restaurant. 9218 4^th Ave. (between 92^nd and 93^rd St.), Brooklyn, NY 11209. (718) 238-4505.

Want me to take you to lunch? Send your End of the Line suggestions to submissions@Pitchknives.com.