To make excuses not to eat with my friend as her greedyness irritates me?

[Corpse]

My friend (we work together) is constantly going on about her "diet" and how she desperately needs to lose weight and was even trying to get slimming pills off the doctor etc. She's a size 20. We always eat lunch together and I'm sorry but her eating habits just really, really annoy me. She'll buy a huge pot of pasta and literally gobble it down in about a minute, she'll then wolf down a packet of crisps and then pop to the vending machine and buy a chocolate bar and then quite often she'll go to the bakery and buy a massive muffin. Now what she eats is her business and I don't care about her size but to go on and on about dieting and then eat like a pig really, really annoys me.
I just can't stand greed. A few weeks back someone brought in a box of maltesers to demonstrate something (he said for everyone to help themselves but the original purpose was for them to be used as a demonstration for something unconnected to eating). Anyway a few people grabbed one of two - my friend took 3, then she took a large handful - and then polished off the rest of the box laughing like she was being funny. Greed isn't funny! it's annoying!

So anyway I don't really want to eat lunch with her, it makes me uncomfortable and puts me off my own food. Will she twig on to why I'm doing this because I don't want to upset her.

Not the diet coke thing again. I'm fat and a greedy pig but I can't abide normal coke, haven't drunk it since 1985. I drink diet coke because I prefer the taste. Fat people aren't generally so stupid as to think the diet coke makes a difference you know. It's preference. So can we please put that particular piece of fuckwittery to bed? It's wheeled out every single time.

YABU - it's her business what she eats and when.

But, I do know how annoying it is. My DM does this, sits and eats a meal with us, the same portion size as DH fgs, then at the end of every meal, just has to go back and "I'll just have a little bit more" If you want more, why not take more at the start Grrrr.

She has done this all her life apparently, when she was a kid my Aunt remembers that my DM had to have that little bit more food than anyone else, and had to have seconds.

Good grief. Leave the poor woman alone.

I've got a 'friend' who once told me her and her boyfriend only ever spoke about me behind my back when they were talking about my weight and how unhealthy it was.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. This is one of the most miserable, food obsessed woman I have ever met.

It's not just 'greedy' people who are food obsessed.

Don't eat with her if you don't want to, but tbh you sound smug to me and like you have food issues too.

Yes. YABU. It might irritate you but I don't think it's worth making a big deal out of.

She may not be going to the doctor for "diet" pills but appetite suppressants.

What a lot of posters are describing is over eating, not greed. There is new research on this, it is the other end of anorexia and is a eating disorder.

It can be for a variety of reasons, some will be emotional, others just how a relationship with food was started in childhood. The research showed that in some people thy never stop feeling hungry because their brain isn't, or hasn't been set to. We can also loose that ability, in the same way that an anorexic doesn't feel hunger. The problem that we now have is that food is constantly available.

One poster described how her MIL had been the same as a child, well it should have ben addressed then.

I have come through a serious illness and have been diagnosed wih a life long condition, my appetite has gone into over drive, so i know how it feels to feel absolutely starving to the point of feeling sick, even when you have just eaten a massive meal.

Eating only fresh foods/fruit helps, but it is a battle every day at the moment for me. My consultant doesn't see my increased weight as a problem because i eat healthy foods and have low blood pressure, so i am going to have to pay for hypnotherapy myself, which luckily i can afford.

I hate being around people who are messy eaters, or noisy eaters or people who gobble food down like dogs/cats. I have issues with food, but I tend to avoid eating with people who bring out these issues, I never say anything but often find myself casting glances or being short if they then go on about dieting. I understand these are my issues and it's none of my business what people choose to eat. It does bug me when people lie about how much they've consumed in a day/week/month because if you want to lose weight you need to be honest with yourself. I'm trying to lose weight and I know it's because I don't do enough exercise that's it's coming off slowly. If I was deadly serious about doing it i'd get off my ass quite frankly.

Yanbu to not want to eat with someone who eats greedily - poor table manners are horrible for other people trying to eat in peace, whether it's wolfing the food, playing with the food, slurping, letting food drivel down their chins - whatever.
I think a lot of posters here have interpreted your post as an attack on fat people - but just because someone is overweight doesn't give them the right to display poor table manners. A lot of very defensive people here on this thread.

Actually Mrsgradgrind re-reading the op it is clearly about the amount the friend is eating rather than her bad table manners.

MelodyPondering said:
Actually Mrsgradgrind re-reading the op it is clearly about the amount the friend is eating rather than her bad table manners.

I disagree, it's about how the friend eats the food rather than the quantity of food itself eg she gobbles her food, eats like a pig - these are examples of greedy eating, and greedy eating is an example of poor table manners. Why should the OP put up with it?

I disagree, it's about how the friend eats the food rather than the quantity of food itself eg she gobbles her food, eats like a pig - these are examples of greedy eating, and greedy eating is an example of poor table manners. Why should the OP put up with it?

Fair point Mrs G but in fact that's not what the OP said to start with...it was only later that she said that her friends ate like a hungry animal. In her OP she just listed what her friend ate (which in fact sounds like me on a very good day!!!)

You are absolutely right that bad table manners are a turn off, but what appears to the OP to be gobbling may in fact be someone who enjoys food more than she does. And to quote myself (have I no shame?) there are other sorts of bad table manners that are equally off putting:

As for me, nothing irritates me more than someone who acts like food is their personal enemy, takes teeny tiny nibbles, chews everything a gazillion times, pushes food around the plate, puts their knife and fork down between every sodding mouthful...it just annoys me so much!

Interesting thread

I dont think you have an issue with food at all. I will say though, your friend has, and I can actually understand abit about her.

She clearly wants to lose weight, knows abit about diets etc. But cannot put them into place. She is inwardly unhappy

Alot of people think that fat people are greedy, maybe some of them are. But there are some of them that have eating problems, people eat for many different reasons, that you will not be aware of.

Just be patient with her, and like others have said just eat on your own if you feel abit out of place with her.

But as I said just look abit more deeper maybe she needs a shoulder to cry on

I am obese (well actually I am losing weight and think I might be just overweight now :o) and also drink diet coke. I prefer the taste,it's sweeter.

SarahDoctor, but the OP did mention "gobbling" and eating "like a pig" in her first post, hence her post is about the ways rather than the what of eating. And as I said in an earlier post, I wasn't singling out greediness as the only type of bad table manners so I'm with you on that one!

lol at there being no point in drinking diet coke if you eat cake etc. Calories are cumulative you know....

I eat too much cake/chocolate etc. but I also have a 500ml diet coke everyday at work. If I switch that for normal coke it equates to around 16 pounds of extra fat over the year.

So how exactly is it not worth drinking diet instead?

I have a similar friend, she has been talking for months and months about losing weight, she's not obese by any standards and I actually think she looks fine the way she is and have told her many many times but it doesn't go in, she refused to make any changes to her diet or try any kind of diet and is now on diet pills, but she is putting weight on because she is eating more because she thinks the pills will do all the hard work so is eating even more. She blames the increase in weight on the pills not working, she genuinely does not think its the extra 3 chocolate bars she is eating.

I love the lady to bits and I'd love to wave a wand and give her the body she wants but the truth is she would still have problems. But its hard to listen to her get upset everyday because she's not happy with herself and then watch her eat several snickers. I dont judge her though as I know her issues are not just about food and I hope she knows that I'm there for her and will help her when shes ready for that.

Very good point entropy, very logical. I think people are asuming that no one could possibly prefer diet coke.

Mrs G you are absolutely right (again!) I missed that (obviously snout down in a box of chocolates at the time!!!)

SarahD - I would irritate you cos I am a slow eater - not in a "oohh I'd better not eat that morsel of celery, it'll tip me over the calorie-count edge" but I just happen to be slow. Although as DH has pointed out, I will eat a bar of chocolate or packet of crisps within seconds!

YANBU about how she eats... My DH eats so fast he has coughed and sPluttered in the past as he has stuffed more food in before finishing chewing and swallowing the previous mouthfull! There's no need for his haste as I have promised I will NEVER steal his dinner my friend a few years ago ate like this to with gaping open mouth and churning food rolling around too! Made me feel ill!

People talking endlessly about food are very boring, whatever their perspective.
Try changing the subject?

I've also experienced endless talk about diets in the work canteen by people who are clearly obsessed with food and 'need' chocolate all the time and the general mood of distaste and emphasis on things I don't want to eat anyway while eating horrid crap used to bore my head off and put me off my own, healthy, lovely lunch, which I'd otherwise have eaten with some enthusiasm.

My observation was that there was an inverse relationship between talking about diets and losing weight - those who did, just got on and did it, some invoked support from close colleagues but didn't go on and on about it all the time. These people are bores with problems, listening passively doesn't help but you're unlikely to be the right person to intervene, so I'd try to avoid those people or talk about something else.

It's no coincidence that greed is one of the deadly sins, tis very irritating.

@ Mrs G

'i just can't stand greed...'

Yes, you do sound a bit issue-laden. What would you determine sufficiently 'ungreedy'?

Of course YANBU to want to eat alone, whenever you like. But what you really mean is 'aibu to treat what this woman eats, and how she eats it, as a moral issue.' and the answer is YABU. Over-, and under-eating is not a question of morality.

I agree with gwendoline about the nonsencial diet coke story which is wheeled out all the time. I would order a meal in macdonalds and have a diet coke with, not because I am stupid and think that a 0 cal drink would compensate for the extra large fries, but simply because I loathe the taste of normal coke, and prefer the taste of diet.

There is something unpleasant in the way that the OP has phrased her opening post. However she has self confessed 'issues' about food herself, I assume that is why she is so viscerally disgusted at the sight of her colleague eating. You would have thought though that someone who has admitted having problems around food would have a bit more empathy with someone else who also has a strange relationship with food. Ho hum.

It's no coincidence that greed is one of the deadly sins, tis very irritating.

I think this might refer to the sort of greed that sees 95% of the resources shared between 5% of the population, that kinda thing, rather than someone having what appears to some people, to be an inexplicably large appetite.

I think something has to to be rather more than irritating to rank among the deadly sins, otherwise where would we stop? Hogging the remote control? Cracking knuckles? Being keen on photography?

btw Posie I do get that you are using litotes for humorous effect