What is more challenging than acting like a lady but thinking like a man? Eating like a man.

More specifically, eating a burger like a man, with mouth gaping up and juices running down the face. Most women find this sight disgusting. But men do not seem bothered about the lumps of bread and meat stuck in their teeth, the ketchup stains on their shirt, the stench of onion on their breath afterward.

My first few attempts at eating a burger like a man were disasters. Maybe I was gripping the burger too tightly, but I found that all of the ingredients started to fall out after taking one big bite.

So, in order to make the most of a bad situation and to maintain my lady-like dignity, I changed my approach and asked for a knife and fork. I cut the burger into four pieces. Still, I needed to be careful, so I wouldn't spill sauce or other bits of burger onto my outfit, or end up with ingredients smeared all over my face. I had to focus on the burger rather than the person sitting across the table from me. A week later, after eating the burger with the male friend, I was invited to go out for burgers again.

Just when I was about to give up, my friend forwarded me an article from Japan: a burger chain had invented a "liberation wrapper" to help women save face when eating burgers. The wrapper covers your face and allows you to eat a giant burger any way you want. The person sitting across the table can only see a beautiful smiling mouth printed on the wrapper.

But as such wrappers only existed in Japan, I resigned myself to kissing burgers goodbye. But then, something happened. One day, while I was reading a style strategy book called "Less is more," a brilliant idea popped into my head. Why not use the same less-is-more approach when it comes to eating burgers? A burger is just a sandwich. I could remove all the juicy staff from it to make it more palatable to a lady.

On my next burger date, I ordered a burger with no tomato, no mayonnaise, no onion, no mushrooms, no avocado, no nothing. The waiter looked at me like I was an idiot. He later served me with my slim and dry burger with only lettuce and streaky bacon. I ate it with knife and fork elegantly.

This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.