Defeating the Purpose

Here's a good example of what my wife's talking about. We're getting ready to go out to eat, again, today, for the second time. Now, we were invited to go, and unfortunately we're very weak when it comes to our meals. So, while we have a delicious dinner planned already for this evening, we've decided to go ahead and enjoy the company of others and dine out. I'm not sure what it is about eating out, but it sure has it's spell on us. I know we're not saving any time by doing it: we've got to load up the kids, drive there, order, wait, wait, (wait some more, depending on where we are), eat, pay (a lot), and then drive home and unpack everyone. We kill two hours on a thirty minute meal! It's definately not saving money (wouldn't be talking about it if it did). So what is it? Why do we like to do it so often? Any thoughts?