... to find adult women who talk about their weight unbearably boring?

[legallyblond]

AIBU -I am worried I am being a bitch, basically, and overly coloured by my history (see below).....

We had a big lunch yesterday with family and friends to celebrate/mark a couple of events.

We are now all in our early thirties and mostly have kids or are trying etc. All the women (and the men) are well educated, clever and pretty issue free.

The pub where we went pretty much just does really good, proper wood fired oven pizzas. We had invited everyone for (and put a tab behind the bar) for lunch and it was arranged a month or so ago.

Basically, I just wondered if I am being unreasonable in frankly, being unbearably annoyed by pretty much all my friends (I love them, but in this respect... arrgh!).

Short story is: I was the only female who actually ate a pizza. Two others shared a side salad and the rest just had diet coke. We were there from 12.30 until 5pm. The conversation amongt the girls was, literally 99.9% about "do you think I have lost weight" or (from someone who is getting married) "I love my dress but it makes me look soooo skinny" and honestly, 4 hours worth of talking about what people eat (sooooo much - sooo bloated) and what people weigh. Also coupled with "oh god, can you eat all that, I could never eat that... wow! you won't need any dinner" (err, yes, I can indeed eat a pizza for one for lunch and no, I really don't worry that it is going to make me fat and will have dinner as normal... ) None of the girls have ever been bigger than a size 10/12 and are mostly now about size 8/10. Me too in fact, not that it is relevant!

Now I do understand what it is to be obsessed about weight and to be ill with it - I was in hospital for anorexia for a few months as a teenager and was in and out of outpatient programs for a couple of years then, as a teenager. I also obviously understand that if you are overweight, you need to eat less and diet to lose weight and be healthy. Fair enough. None of us/my friends have ever been overweight, all are slim.

Honestly, all I could think all day was: GROW UP! Yes, as a depressed teenager with not much else going on in your life, worrying about your weight to the extent you are ill is a problem and should be discussed. As an eating disorder should at any stage of your life I guess. Honestly, none of these women have an eating disorder. They just don't (thankfully!). I know them intimately and know what I am looking for. And none of them are, in fact, too thin - all are just slim. I kept thinking that there are so many massive things in the world that you could be spending time thinking about and worrying about (I started talking about Syria and the image of the toddler who died (I found it so moving)... no response, back to our weight....). Also, we have kids... this is SUCH a bad example to them. Urgh! BORING!!!!

I am being horrid aren't I. This is because of my past, isn't it..? I should just ignore and not worry about what others say and do, shouldn't I? Sigh - I know it, do tell me (its why I am writing!)

Seriously, AIBU?

RealLife, I feel MUCH more comfortable with that kind of conversation.

YANBU LegallyBlonde. How dull!

It also annoys me when people harp on about the gym. Why do people feel the need to talk about it?

I agree totally with Hexagonal. So attention seeking!

Also, do your friends know about your previous ED, Legally? If so, then I think it was mighty insensitive of them to go on and on and on about what you were eating. Even if they don't know then it's rude anyway! If I was eating lunch and somebody kept commenting on my food it would put me off, especially of they kept saying,"OMG, that's so much. You're not going to eat all that are you?" I'd feel self conscious about eating it and not want to finish it, even though I'd be starving! Maybe they were secretly hoping you'd offer them a piece?

Luckily, I don't have friends like this. Going out for a meal is a treat, it's not for watching what you eat!

YANBU, I don't care what other people eat as long as they don't bore me to death with the details, there are few things worse than eating with someone who can't shut up about their diet and scrutinising everything on my plate.

I find that rolling my eyes and telling them I'm change the topic to something more interesting so no more of that boring nonsense please, shuts most people up, some women are so obsessive you can see them still thinking about calories and fat contents in their heads. As long as they keep it there I suppose but it's still annoying.

I love people who enjoy their food, I love mine.

Thanks again all. I have appreciated all the responses! TBH, although I will remain friends with these women forever I am sure (long history from student days etc), the whole incident has made me wonder... and made me fairly ambivilent about moving away and therefore seeing them less! Or maybe I feel like that anyway , hence allowing myself to get so annoyed! Although it wasn't just my friends, some of the culprits were DH's sister and mother....

I think I said upthread somewhere, but yes, they do all know about my history. So on second thoughts, although I really wouldn't expect them to tiptoe round me as it is something very much in my past, I suppose they were being fairly insensitive (especially as my MIL, who I have spoken to about it quite recently really, chimed in with all the comments about me "managing" to eat a pizza - almost funny really!!).... but more boring than anything else, frankly!

YANBU its boring and I hope you enjoyed your Pizza , I have a friend who is a weight bore and posts pictures of her weight loss on FB yawn nobody cares you are fine as you are dont loose anymore , I think sharing a side salad and diet coke smacks of body issues TBH I think you are right to be bored at the weight talk ,

good for you OP

YANBU - I used to work with a few ladies who spent most of their time talking about dieting. They would tend to skip lunch and instead eat a bunch of crap instead (crisps, snack bars, etc.) and then they expressed amazement that I ate a normal lunch and could keep my figure. And yes, I am pretty vain and do watch my figure, but I find talking about it all the time quite boring.

I was so glad to move offices.

Haven't read the whole thread, but the thing that gets me about this kind of gathering is not the weight conversations (am sure most if not all of my female friends would have at least shared a pizza) but the general man / woman split. So there is one gathering of women (discussing food or whatever else) and one of men. Does anyone else find this annoying? Is it really true that men / women will only find certain subjects interesting and therefore need to have separate conversations? I wish there could be more mixing of the sexes on these types of occasions!

I know LeQueen - that's how I feel too!

I felt like shouting: "I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ARSE THAT YOU STILL FEEL BLOATED FROM YOUR DINNER LAST NIGHT AND I DON'T THINK ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD DOES EITHER (like its not normal to eat dinner and then, shock horror, lunch the next day - if you are really are still bloated you prob are intolerant of something you ate and/or drank too much so just eat a nice salad with something nutritious like avocado and pine nuts or something, don't drink a fizzy diet coke, and shut the f up). Ahem. I do however give a rat's arse about [a million and one other inetersting things]."

I hate eating with people who treat food as The Enemy! Food is fuel, but it's also enjoyable. Sitting there with a cats-arse face nibbling on a lettuce leaf and regaling all the normal eaters with details of your latest weight loss campaign is rude, life-denying and self-centred. Eat what you want, but keep quiet about it. It's boring!

YANBU. I am losing weight but I still eat pizza, not every day obviously but it is possible to eat what you want and lose weight as long as it is done in moderation.

Having said that it drives me mad when my mil makes it into an issue that I don't have dessert. I never eat dessert, not really into it and when I fancy something sweet I have a bar of chocolate. She has known me for over 20 years but still gets annoyed when I don't order dessert. It wouldn't be so bad if she ate dessert but she doesn't, she doesn't order off the menu either, she only has a grilled chicken breast and vegetables. I think she is trying to project her own eating issues onto me.

Haziedoll - she is def projecting!

I really, really wouldn't care what any of them ate as long as they ate something... we were treating everyone for a couple of big occasions and I found it rude and a bad example to DCs.

My biggest problem was with the sodding 4 hours of weightloss talk (but in that way that's all sort of saying you don't want to lose weight but you're just so skinny and so and so is too skinny and you're sooo bloated form eating soo much sort of reverse competition weirdness, iykwim!).

If I go out for dinner, I Go Out For Dinner....starter, main, dessert, drinks, wine....they went out and had just a diet coke?? Bizarre.

They're probably jealous that they calorie count and you don't and yet you are all the same size.

Booooring.