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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to find other people's table manners disgusting?

69 replies

NigellasDealer · 14/04/2014 13:22

sorry but i am sitting in the 'spoons at the moment and right in front of me is a family whose table manners are making me feel ill!!
the mum and dad are holding their knives and forks like pens and sticking out their tongues to meet the food.
the son is is just stabbing at say a sausage with a fork and then holding it up to take bites out of, alternated with putting his face down to the plate to hoove up peas and insert the knife into his mouth. He is about 18 at least.
the daughter is eating chips in quite a normal fashion however. no! she is stabbing at them with a wooden skewer!
am i being snobby about the knife and fork holding?
should i give a toss anyway? it IS in public though!

OP posts:
parakeet · 14/04/2014 13:28

Bending your face down to the plate is not normal, no.

NurseyWursey · 14/04/2014 13:30

YANBU.

Although you would probably hate what I do. I cut everything up first, then use my fork in my right hand to eat with. It's probably because I like reading when I eat so have the left hand for a book.

ADishBestEatenCold · 14/04/2014 13:31

What are these 'spoons you say you are sitting in?

DoJo · 14/04/2014 13:31

I don't care how people hold their knives and forks so long as they can transport food into their mouths without undue noise or visual antics. As soon as I can see or hear food being chewed, I am out.

TanteRose · 14/04/2014 13:31

The knife and fork thing doesn't really bother me

The rest is gross

But you are in Wetherspoons so....

ladymariner · 14/04/2014 13:32

YANBU.....end of!

Jerboa · 14/04/2014 13:33

YANBU! I also really hate people chomping away with an open mouth (unless there's a reason they can't chew with their mouth closed, obviously) like my brother does.

LaurieFairyCake · 14/04/2014 13:33

We'll go somewhere naice for lunch

You're too posho for it Wink

LaurieFairyCake · 14/04/2014 13:33

Well not we'll

CakeExpectations · 14/04/2014 13:34

From what I've heard about our local Wetherspoons, YABU and should be impressed that they are using cutlery at all.

(Having said that, what you've described gives me the rage too.)

Original poster
NigellasDealer · 14/04/2014 13:34

that is not too bad nursey.....I could deal with that I think.
'spoons = Wetherspoons
torn between feeling like i should not be so snobby and disgust....

OP posts:
FourForksAche · 14/04/2014 13:43

yanbu, gross!

Iamfrankieheck · 14/04/2014 13:46

You do know it's rude to stare...right? Wink

NCISaddict · 14/04/2014 13:52

YANBU, we went out for lunch yesterday and were sitting in the pub garden, a couple sitting nearby there who were obviously starving or at least the fact that they were eating each other seemed to suggest that. Even when I looked away I could hear the squelching and slurping noises resulting from their foreplay. It quite put me off my roast.
I then went out to sit in the car whilst DH paid and they were saying goodbye and I could still hear them, across the carpark! Quite revolting.

PoirotsMoustache · 14/04/2014 14:03

My DS eats his sausages off the fork, without cutting them up first Blush

Original poster
NigellasDealer · 14/04/2014 14:05

well so does mine given half a chance! but I try not to give that half a chance.....Grin

OP posts:
JonSnowsPout · 14/04/2014 14:05

Ive got arthritis, the only way i can hold my knife and fork is like that...how uncouth of me

ADishBestEatenCold · 14/04/2014 14:07

"'spoons = Wetherspoons"

Never been. Is it one of those family 'Pub Grub' places with a predictable burger/chicken/steak/ribs type menus?

If so, I would imagine they appeal to a whole range of people and, on that basis, YABU. If you would like somewhere of a particular standard, then you should go somewhere of that particular standard.

Having said that, my tolerance to differing "table manners" is fairly robust. The only thing I really cannot bear is open-mouthed chewing.

MrsSteptoe · 14/04/2014 14:09

Between my husband, who seems to want to hoover up a whole plateful in one mouthful and simultaneously eat the cutlery, and my DS, who puts his face down to his plate as if it were a dog bowl and persistently uses his knife and fork in the wrong hands, I can't afford to get too ragey or I'd just implode.

On the other hand, I have succeeded in teaching DS not to hold a knife like a pen (my despairing efforts to get him to use one, rather than stabbing food with his fork and brandishing it aloft so that he can take bites off it like a toffee apple, notwithstanding).

SouthernComforts · 14/04/2014 14:10

That's pretty standard in my spoons. I once saw a man bite the end of another mans finger in there. To make it more bizzare they were both members of a wedding party. A wedding party in Wetherspoons. With biting.

Bonsoir · 14/04/2014 14:11

Not being able to use cutlery as it was intended is a massive red flag.

SouthernComforts · 14/04/2014 14:11

Bite the end off even.

Original poster
NigellasDealer · 14/04/2014 14:11

A wedding party in Wetherspoons. With biting
awesome Grin

OP posts:
PublicEnemyNumeroUno · 14/04/2014 14:13

The joys of wetherspoons

SouthernComforts · 14/04/2014 14:16

I love it though. I can go there in my joggers and a jumper, yesterdays makeup and a killer hangover and noone judges me. I'm accepted into the fold. Ordering hair of the dog at 10 am with a breakfast is greeted with nods of approval from the blokes at the bar well into thier third or fourth pint. There is nowhere better to be rough than spoons.