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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Dinner at 9pm.

194 replies

LookAtTheFlowersKerry · 11/03/2017 14:53

We are going out for dinner tonight as it's my sister's birthday.

The table is booked for 8.45pm. I'll be chewing my own arm off by then! We're meeting at 7.30 for drinks. So I'll be starving and probably pissed by the time we sit down to eat.

Am I just really out of touch? Is this how the world works now? Bearing in mind I'm usually in bed by ten.

Am I just an old fuddy duddy? Dsis is a hip young thing despite only being a year younger who has a vibrant social life. She says it's normal to eat that late and that I'm weird for always booking tables for 7pm ish.

Aibu?

OP posts:
NavyandWhite · 11/03/2017 17:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

peggyundercrackers · 11/03/2017 17:05

We always eat before 6pm, the night is for doing other things not sitting eating at 9pm, couldn't be doing with that, it's far too late for us.

wonkyegg · 11/03/2017 17:12

During the week we eat at around 8-8.30 but that's purely because I don't get home from work until 7.30. Ideally we'd eat around 6pm as I'm usually starving by 4pm! I would find 9pm too late purely because I'd be wrecked after the pre dinner drinks and asleep in my cheesecake!

Alice212 · 11/03/2017 17:14

peggy "the night is for doing other things"

now there's a sneaky way to derail the thread

TinklyLittleLaugh · 11/03/2017 17:14

It depends on your working a leisure patterns doesn't it? We work from home and the kids and our leisure activities tend to start from 6.30 or later so eating at 5.30 makes sense.

UsedToBeAPaxmanFan · 11/03/2017 17:16

We usually eat much earlier than that but if we're eating late then i need to nibble at about 7pm! Were having a dinner party tonight, I know we won't eat until at least 8.30 as one of the guests can't get here til then, so I will put out crisps snd then eat my bodyweight in them.

I'm off to Spain next week with my mum. I have warned her that restaurants won't serve food until about 9pm as she hates to eat late. Not sure how that's going to go, but I guess that's why tapas was invented

limitedperiodonly · 11/03/2017 17:17

It's not the time of the dinner so much. But starting drinking at 7.30pm and then not eating for at least 90 minutes - by the time you've sat down and ordered - is a stupid idea.

I wouldn't turn up until about 8.15pm for drinks because any earlier and either I'd drink mineral water and be bored out of my skull waiting for my dinner while everyone else was getting pissed. Or I'd start drinking and then be too drunk to enjoy my food and wine in the restaurant.

I wouldn't want to load up on food to soak up the pre-dinner alcohol because I have a small appetite so I'd leave most of my dinner. That would be a waste of a nice restaurant. So I'd get to your sister's drinks at 8.15pm, have a gin and tonic and then expect to move on to eat.

Nice name, by the way. I guess you're a Walking Dead fan.

Thingiebob · 11/03/2017 17:19

I would have to have something to tide me over. I never understood eating this late to be honest.
We normally eat between 4.30 and 5.30pm

whatithink · 11/03/2017 17:19

I think as the posts show, everyone is so different and a lot of it has to do with being at different stages in life.

I remember in my 20s not even going out until 9 or 10 pm in the evening and staying up until 2am or often later. Even if I had work the next day.

Now in my 50s, eating at 9pm sounds like my worst nightmare and like the OP if I started drinking at 7.30pm I would be falling asleep by 9pm anyway.

An ideal night to me now is eating around 7pm, certainly no later than 8pm and ideally be home in bed no later than 10 - 10.30pm.

TheOnlyLivingToyInNewYork · 11/03/2017 17:24

and a lot of it has to do with being at different stages in life

I don't know about that. I'm well into my 40's and still eat late, stay up late, go out late and can easily drink for 90 mins before dinner!
Last night I went out at 10pm.

Lot's of people don't change that much.

topcat2014 · 11/03/2017 17:27

Ideally, I like to have tea done, dusted, washed up etc by 6pm.

If I was going out for evening meal at 8:45 it would need to be a four meal day - with sandwiches or something at 5.

must be a heathen

rookiemere · 11/03/2017 17:29

I don't like eating late.

It's a bit of a source of friction between DH and I. I like to have our dinner reservation at 7.30pm, he'd prefer it at 8.15pm so we can go for a drink before hand, but if I have a drink on an empty stomach then I don't really enjoy my meal as much.

When I do eat late I tend to nibble before hand or even if I don't I generally lose my appetite by about 9pm. Then I find it hard to sleep as my body hasn't had time to digest the food.

YANBU OP, hope people don't order starters Grin. Starters at 9.30pm make me particularly stabby.

HunterHearstHelmsley · 11/03/2017 17:29

I don't know how people can drink before eating. If I have alcohol then eat, I pretty much have to go straight to bed!!

I like to eat before 7. If I get home after that then I'll just have a snack. I tend to be in bed between 10 and 11 and get up at 5. To me, eating late seems... Pointless. I figure you've got that far might as well not bother now.

TheOnlyLivingToyInNewYork · 11/03/2017 17:32

4.30? Thats more like lunchtime!

If ate before 6 pm I'd need another meal at 11pm.

TheOnlyLivingToyInNewYork · 11/03/2017 17:32

4.30? Thats more like lunchtime!

If ate before 6 pm I'd need another meal at 11pm.

MrsRhubarb · 11/03/2017 17:33

I'm in my twenties, and that would have been pretty normal for me a few years ago, pre dc. As a one off for dinner with other people I wouldn't mind it, but definitely would need a snack to keep me going until then!

woodhill · 11/03/2017 17:34

I'd be falling asleep, starving and it would give me stomach problems, too late

Camomila · 11/03/2017 17:41

That's close to bedtime for me Grin

In our group we tend to go out for lunch if the DC are coming or meet at 7 if it's just adults...a lot of us live out of London now so it's easier if we can all go get our various trains at about 10.

I'd have a few rounds of toast at 5ish in your shoes.

5moreminutes · 11/03/2017 17:42

I go to bed at 10 because I start work at 6am. Our entire household needs to get up by 6am on a weekday, and it makes no sense to shift things by hours and hours at weekends (especially as i work one or two weekends per month).

I'd hate to eat at 9pm. It also annoys me that people assume anyone who works works 9-5 (I do my 8 hours and pick DC3 up at 3pm afterwards) and anyone who works hard works 9- late.

Mind you I am a fuddy duddy i guess - in my 20s I did often work 7am-7pm (meeting friends fora long lunch) or 8pm and then go out drinking with work mates and then have a curry with them, taxi home, back to work for 7am the next day... Or work 7am - 5pm then go to lectures at my evening uni 6-9pm and eat with fellow students afterwards.

I have zero interest in doing that now though, been there, done that, bored of it, did something else...

I'd suck it up for a one off but it doesn't suit me, just as meeting for lunch at 12 probably wouldn't suit your sister.

You should do things at times that suit you if you invite her to celebrate your birthday though - the late eaters usually all out refuse to eat early but expect those who like to eat early to fit in with them every time.

Ontopofthesunset · 11/03/2017 17:43

We met my parents (late 70s and early 80s) for dinner at 9.30 last night in a restaurant 45 mins drive from their home.It had to be late as younger son had a paid commitment till 9. Not everyone goes to bed early when they get older. We normally eat between 8 and 9 during the week. 5.30 seems unreasonably early for anyone apart from young children. Most people in a 9-5 type job wouldn't be home by then. I realise that people have different working hours and commutes though. In London loads of people aren't home till 7 or 8 so of course they eat later.

Yolandafarthing · 11/03/2017 17:44

Sounds like family. My mum and all my siblings have lunch at about 4pm and dinner at 10.

I get laughed at for being uptight about times. But I'm up at 5.30am with my one year old - I'm always in bed by ten!!

limitedperiodonly · 11/03/2017 17:45

whatithink I think I'm the same age and it sounds like we had similar lifestyles in our 20s. There was a stage where I'd call a cab between 11.30pm and midnight to meet my friends in a club where we'd stay until 3am.

They worked in a bar so I'd meet them after work. We'd be sober on arrival; not so much when we left Wink. Then I'd be at work for 9.30am the next day. But I was 23. I'd also never go to a restaurant unless on a date. What a waste of time.

When I met the man who became my husband we'd normally get to a bar at about 9.30pm and eat dinner at about 11.30pm.

These days we normally eat between 8pm and 9pm, whether in a restaurant or at home, but that's because we don't have children or an early start. I wouldn't think anyone was an unsophisticate for wanting to eat much earlier. I hate that idea. They just have different lives. It's allowed.

StarryIllusion · 11/03/2017 17:54

I can't eat after 8 or I'm up all night feeling sick. Fuck that.

teacher54321 · 11/03/2017 17:57

This whole thread reminds me of a meal I went to with some work colleagues that I couldn't think of a reason to get out of. The chap organising it booked the table for 8.30pm, then turned up late and we didn't sit down until 9pm. He was then the only person (out of 12) who ordered a starter, which meant we had to all sit there watching him eat it and we didn't get our main courses till 10pm... that was an interminable evening...!

tobee · 11/03/2017 18:03

We eat late as dh self employed and gets up at different times and I'm not working atm. Late seems normal to me but find it quite hilarious how heated this debate has become. I like that we're all different.