Table Manners

[PistachioTiramisu]

We were having a drink at a fairly upmarket pub yesterday evening. Two young men - around 20 - came to sit at a table next to us and ordered roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. I watched in fascinated horror as they proceeded to 'devour' their food. They both held their cutlery the wrong way round and like daggers, they attacked the meat over and over with their forks, then tearing it on the plate. Finally, instead of putting food on their forks and bringing fork to mouth, they bent over and shovelled the food into their mouths from the plate. Do people not learn table manners any more? It seems to me that all the niceties of life are being eroded to the lowest common denominator. So sad.

I can’t stand noisy eating but I think I have an issue with noises, it sends white hot rage in me
worst was working in a call centre and someone rang up and had the entire conversation while eating a bowl of muesli
my dad will ring me while he’s eating and all I can hear is lip smacking and chomping away, I hang up now as he knows I can’t tolerate it

I think your ideals have rubbed off massively onto your child if he has to sit away and isolate himself from other children in school at lunch time. Does he have friends in school or do most of the kids avoid him due to you teaching him to be a bit of a snob based on how the other kids eat? Basic table manners I agree with like not spitting food everywhere or slopping their food like a starved animal which is obviously not good manners but I'm not sure anybody in a busy family home necessarily needs to know the "proper" placement of cutlery like they're dining in a very upmarket restaurant.

Glad you volunteered to prove what I said perfectly.

That's not showing you're 'better' than other people, just trying to be pleasant to be around and showing you have consideration.

Even if you don’t watch some people you can’t un hear the disgusting noises they make when eating 😵‍💫

It’s probably the noise. I struggle with eating noises a lot
It’s not being a snob for me, I get irrationally enraged by it and it sounds louder and louder as if someone is eating an apple and smacking their lips and open mouth chewing right next to my ear
then I can’t eat

YANBU op. Today I was in a garden centre café and on a table opposite, a woman ate most of her meal (fish, chips and peas) with her hands and her companion held his fork like he was stabbing his dinner to death. On another table, a woman was chewing with her mouth open and wiping her plate with her fingers and licking them. I'd have seen better table manners at the zoo.

I can’t be doing with bad table manners. My dread is to sit across from someone at a social function and have to see them talking with food still in their mouth. Wearing hats at the table is also a big no for me, the only exception being if you’re sat in the sun outside. Table manners and manners in general cost absolutely nothing.

All my boys have table manners, but all 3 hold their cutlery the wrong way round. Their dad does too, but they did it spontaneously, very strange

Absolutely agree.
We had table manners drilled into us. I remember asking my mum and dad why was it so important and they said aside from just not appearing disgusting or rude, people will make judgements about you if you don't eat nicely. I know some might clutch their pearls at that idea, but truth is, they were right. When you see someone being a heathen with the way they hold a fork, licking their knife or becoming a human washing machine with their mouths and slapping their chops, you really do jump to making assumptions about their brains and their background. Rightly or wrongly.

I also don't think schools are as hot on this either anymore. For example, as a kid at primary in the 80's you weren't allowed to leave your table until everyone had finished. Now its a complete free for all.
I agree with the OP, very sad.

My children do not hold knives like pencils or shovel food in. My eldest ls 26 and was eating long before TikTok etc
they all eat with complete control, cut meat correctly, can serve themselves and others politely.
they put their cutlery together when finished and ask to leave the table. They would never start eating until the everyone is seated and ready to eat.
They are all right handed.
they all naturally ate with cutlery the ‘wrong’ way, they lay tables this way. It feels totally unnatural to them to eat any other way, I never encouraged or modelled it, any more than American TV did.

I was actually thinking about this yesterday, as I went out with a friend for lunch, it's the 2nd time we've been out together to eat, and she eats so horribly it made me feel sick. That's bad isn't it?! 😬I do eat quickly so I'm aware of it and try to slow down but I despise cold food (that is supposed to be hot). I don't think I shovel it in though.

Maybe they're left handed?! I am left handed but use cutlery the right handed way but it's never felt 'normal '. I don't hold it weirdly though

I agree. They're not the same calibre as they once were sadly!

I'm on holiday and I can instantly spot a British person 😂

No. He’s autistic and has significant sensory issues around others making noise when they eat, along with the sight of food in an open mouth, plus certain food smells. If he has sensory overload from being near others eating with no manners then he will not eat and the afternoon will be a nightmare because he’s dysregulated and hungry.

I agree with things such as eating with your mouth closed etc but I really can't get worked up about which hand someone uses cutlery. Who cares?

@PistachioTiramisu yes, I agree table manners seem to be long gone these days! I was out for dinner in a very expensive restaurant recently and the couple at the table beside us (maybe mid 30’s, so about a decade younger than me) left a lot to be desired with their table manners… They both blew their noses on the lace and cloth napkins several times which I found disgusting, they obviously thought that was ok! Also talked loudly with their mouthes full and hadn’t a clue how to use cutlery. They also asked for salt which is never on tables in certain types of restaurants. The waiter replied saying the chef would be insulted as the food was perfectly seasoned!

The people I know who do this are right handed though.

My left handed relatives can eat properly.

Sometimes you have to do things in the hand the thing is designed for. Driving, it doesn't matter if you are left or right handed you have to change gears using the gear lever. The same with your feet, you don't have the accelerator under your dominant foot.

If you are ever intubated the laryngoscope will be in the HCP's left hand.

@Straightjacketsandroses check your son can breathe through his nose. My mother was constantly telling me to close my mouth at the table. I wasn't chewing I was taking a breath.

I sometimes think it is the Asian influence. Finger food, sharing communal dishes and chop sticks.

My own M would say .. If you have to be reminded of your manners, you don't have any. That would dismay me so much into trying hard to remember to eat politely, in a way that doesn't offend fellow diners.

despite being right handed DH uses his knife in his left hand and fork in his right (but thankfully at least held correctly and not in a pencil or fist grip!)

Its bizarre because he is a joiner and happily uses his right hand for cutting, sawing, drilling and even using a Stanley knife!

I put it down to him not being corrected as a child…..

Until we had our own child…… and no matter how hard he tried or how much I tried to help him DS just could not for he life him grasp using his fork in his left hand and knife in his right!

I accepted that this is clearly some wired phenomenon with them both 😂

Horrified as a supply teacher seeing Year R children eating a roast with their fingers. I kid you not every single one could not use a knife and fork. Sadly parents don’t seem to teach them.
Snobby or not I certainly couldn’t have got together with someone who ate the way described.

Of course they would.
I’m left handed and it is no effort at all, as long as you always do it that way from childhood.

When DS first went to school he could use a knife and fork properly, it seems lots of his peers were just using a fork and/or fingers. He then started to do the same, but was told to just his knife and fork every time he did it at home. He's 7 now and mainly uses a knife and fork properly and I highlight to him how it's easier to cut etc. I also found the same with eating habits, school made them worse not better, he would eat pretty much everything before going to school but started saying he didn't want vegetables as at school they are asked if they do or not and he was copying friends and saying no. I just put the meal on a plate of daily style in serving bowls and he eats veg without prompting. He goes into juniors in September and will be having packed lunches (they weren't allowed in infants due to universal FSMs)

We didn't have food - just a drink.

@Williteverrainagain She’d probably lost her appetite over his appalling behaviour - also potentially anxious about the aftermath of his temper.