"How did you do that?"

Jason turned back to his lunch mate and stabbed another forkful of salad into his mouth.

"Dew vhut?", he asked around the crunching mass as he tried to resist the urge to turn back around and see what the man seated a few tables behind them was doing.

His lunch mate gestured (well ... gesticulated) behind Jason in the direction of the man with barely contained exasperation. "You just talked to him!

"No I didn't, I was talking to you - and stop pointing! Jesus Tez'uk, it's been 15 years since you guys discovered us and y'all still suck at remembering that pointing is rude.", Jason griped as he lightly smacked the aliens tentacle down.

The alien mass of undulating waves of cilia on a round egg-like surface broken up by four tentacles spaced seemingly at random somehow conveyed bashful embarrassment as it drew back its smacked tentacle.

"Sorry. I just don't know how you do it. I've studied your language, culture, and social norms for over a decade - and yet somehow you and a few humans like you seem to communicate without any speech or antecedent correspondence."

"Oooo, antecedent! That's a good one!", Jason praised while trying to catch the waiters eye for a refill on his diet coke.

"Thank you. It was in this mornings crossword.", Tez'uk tersely replied before barrelling on - "I don't understand it! We can't seem to find a rhyme or reason to it. There's just something some of you do with each other where yo- YOU DID IT AGAIN! THERE!"

Te'zuk knocked their own drink over as their tentacles writhed in either excitement or anger. Jason honestly had a hard time reading tentacle or cilia expressions. He sheepishly recalled his many failed duolingo attempts to improve and mentally promised he'd open the app later tonight.

Jason tried to ignore the now plentiful eyes staring at them after Tez'uk's outburst. Glancing back to the waiter whose eye he'd caught he indicated they'd need napkins.

"AGAIN! YOU DID IT AGAIN! JUST NOW!"

At this Jason paused.

"Wait...do you mean what I did with the waiter just now?"

"YES!", Tez'uk practically shouted - their sea of cilia now joining in with their tentacles in displaying waves of heightened agitation. "You did it just now with the waiter! Just like you did with the man behind you!"

Jason blinked slowly at his alien friend. Sometimes he forgot that even though these alien creatures had assimilated so well into human life, they had blind spots. Their obsession with all things language and communication had made exchanging information as easy as breathing, but some things did not translate.

"Tez - they're gay."

The waves of cilia increased their frenetic writhing as Tez'uk processed that information. After a moments pause they responded with a slowness they'd observed in humans talking to a mentally slow creature such as a human baby.

Or a chihuahua.

"Thaaatttt issssss goooooddddd. Doessss notttttt explainnnnnn."

Jason rolled his eyes and looked to make sure the waiter was on his way.

"I can't explain it. It's just a thing we do. I guess I thought you knew. The look I told the waiter earlier was that I needed a refill."

The cilia and tentacles slowed to a standstill. Jason was bemused as he watched the errant twitch of one or two cilia as his friend processed this new information.

"...and the man behind you?"

"Oh! That? He just told me he's in med school, single, and he'd be happy to get drinks with me on Saturday."

The cilia gently waived in a crosshatch pattern that Jason thought he remembered was an expression of puzzlement.

"You...you said all that? With that one look?"

Jason chuckled softly as he let his friend grapple with his newfound knowledge for a moment before he gave an affirmative grunt around his next mouthful of salad.

With a sharp swallow and a sheepish shrug he gestured around at the full dining area. "We've all been doing it. Jerry over there invited me to his kickball tournament. Hector just got engaged but he confessed he's not sure if it's going to work out. Daniel says the straight busboy has cocaine and will give you a bump if you compliment his arms."

Jason put his fork down and dabbed at his mouth.

"We all do it. All the time. It's just a gay thing. Kinda like brunch."

Tez'uk's cilia became a complex roiling sea of mixed messages that Jason doubted he'd find anywhere in tonight's duolingo lesson.

"Wait...brunch is a gay thing??"