To wonder why some people won’t take no for an answer when offering food

My SIL does this all the time. Brings around food going out of date cause it’s going out of date and they’re going away for the weekend and it’s UPF shite we’d never eat and it’s so we have to bin it and take the food waste guilt rather than them.

This is a terrible admission but I’ve started fibbing and saying I’m diabetic when taking my DD to class birthday parties as host parents will just not take no for an answer when it comes to handing out cake. I’m not sweet toothed, and cake really isn’t my thing.

To those saying OP should have been more firm, I can be firm when needed but I’ve genuinely been ignored and a plate thrust in front of me with a comment like ‘no need to watch your calories today, looking great, blah blah…’

I can’t explain it. It’s like you’ve offended them by refusing. Maybe they just don’t want to be left with it either 😆

I heard my ex-MIL complaining about me saying I expected to be waited on and couldn’t even make myself a cup of tea.

What was happening was I never wanted a cup, she’d just keep offering every 5 minutes until eventually I’d say yes just to shut her up- and stop her asking.

How about this @rhereyago :

Host politely offers tea.
We politely accept the tea.
At the end of the visit we extra -politely take our cup to the kitchen and empty the cold contents down the sink.

My mother does this - she wouldn't make a full meal if we said no, but she's a feeder and I now realise she gets validation from it. What I have had to do recently though, is try and ignore the deep sighing and huffing she does when I refuse her offerings. She takes it personally and it drives me INSANE.

In this case, at the point of recieving an invite I'd be saying "no, because you insist on making me food that I don't want and frankly I'm sick of it".

Too much? 🤔

Have you ever seen Father Ted OP? This reminds me of Mrs Doyle.

Did you arrive with biscuits or chocolates? This helps as you can say, let’s just open the biscuits and have a cup of tea and a good catch-up.

That’s the food sorted. So everyone is happy.

It does actually help to have all the facts if you do really want help and advice, rather than just a rant. It's quite a difference between your own family that you see often, and an elderly distant cousin you rarely see. So the advice will be different. If you can't see that, then nothing we say here will help. Good luck for next time.

Did you accidentally stumble into an Asian family gathering? My aunt is ruthless with ‘force-feeding’ 😏

Infuriating OP. I had a friend who was the same with cups of tea. It always ended up with me saying "FFS Steve, I don't want one!" and he'd be all crestfallen. At least it wasn't a meal!

I have heard that some kids were brought up to refuse anything that could be construed as "charity", especially in the days of rationing. Both sides of the fence were convinced the other was just being polite, either offering food, or declining it. There are still some older folk who are stuck in this ridiculous mindset.

I'd just turn this into an amusing anecdote for your friends tbh. It is quite funny.

Ok, so with this bit of back story which you didn't tell us before, this changes things a lot. Not really your family, but more like friends of friends. So of course you don't want to be rude, but as you say, you rarely see them, so this isn't going to happen very often is it?

An elderly lady, who probably doesn't get a lot of company? And who was probably brought up at a time when you always offered your visitors something, especially if they had children with them?

This sounds to me like someone who offers food to be polite, to be kind, because that's what she was brought up to do, and she wants you to stay a while and chat and catch up. She might be lonely, especially for the company of children.

In this case, my advice is that, on the rare occasions you visit her, arrive hungry! Eat what you can. She won't care, because it's about her offering, not you eating.

And boundaries too

I have a friend who keeps making LOTS of food ever time I go round. I tell her not to before hand, I say Im not hungry, but she still makes and puts the food out anyway.
its such a strange situation, but she won’t take no for an answer!!!

My mother-in-law is dreadful for this. You'll say no thanks several times, then she'll give you whatever it is anyway, then act all confused and put out when you don't eat it. I've found that the only thing that (sometimes) works is to give a flat, unequivocal 'no', with nothing else at all, and say it only once. Of course I then get told off for being rude anyway.

Yes there are some people who won’t take no thanks as meaning no

ive just had breakfast
ah but we have sausage and bacon - just one buttie - made with a pack of sausages and a pack of bacon because we don’t want it to go to waste … like no thanks … here you are

And what did you do when Jean brought the food out?

I would have given her a confused look and asked her why she cooked it when she knew I wouldn’t be eating it.

If you actually sat there and ate it, you have a lot of work to do on yourself.

I loathe this too! Also people who pile up your plate with food, rather than put out serving dishes and let everyone serve themselves.

it puts me off going to some friends’ houses, I would rather just meet them for a coffee in a coffee shop. It saves all the pressure of having to say no thank you multiple times.

How clear were you? 'no, we're going to a restaurant in an hour' on repeat? 'Please don't' would be taken by my mum as 'please don't put yourself to the trouble'.

She obviously wasn't listening or believes that the restaurant was just because you needed food not because you wanted to go.

I can imagine this being hard but not so hard that I end up with a meal in front of me.