AIBU - Weird subconscious behaviour when women are out for dinner together - AIBU?

[Mazes]

I was out for dinner yesterday evening with four female friends (were all early 40s). No problem whatsoever with ordering the cocktails, but when it came to ordering from the food menu, one friend chimed in first with the, “I’m just going to go for a salad” and, as always happens, everyone else followed suit with the salads. Does anyone else find this or is it just me? One friend did ask for some fries “for the table” but then everybody just looked at them until they got taken away. I’m not on a diet and nor is anyone else as far as I can tell so why does this happen? Then when it came to dessert orders, there was an uncomfortable silence before everyone declined, of course. Then we had a pot of mint tea. Nobody ate the bread either. It was my turn to pay and I felt like the actual “food” part of the menu was there for decoration only.
AIBU to think this kind of behaviour goes on a lot without women even realising they’re doing it? It’s as if it’s fine to knock back 3 cocktails, but nobody eats a chip!

Never happened with my friends. What we may do is discuss menu - are we doing three courses, two and is that starter/main or main/dessert type thing.

Be the change. Order a burger

This sort of thing happens on our meals out. The last one had someone order a starter as a main, two people sharing a main (wtf is that about?!) and another only ate half of their meal and pushed it away.

But, loads of alcohol flowing with wine and cocktails which must have equalled the calories of my main

None have financial issues or eating disorders that I'm aware of - we've been friends for over 15 years so know a lot about their lives etc....

I inly eat a main course because I don;t have a sweet tooth and starters ruin my appetite but I have what I like and enjoy the company. What I like does tend to be salads, fish etc but not through dieting.

its competitive under eating and its wrong.
and fuels the way the world is about shaming and weight and food and everything I hate.
do they have kids.do they shame them too.

This never happens with my friends... I think I'm the one one who has ever ordered a salad and that's just if I'm not hungry.
If all three of my friends ordered a salad I'd still order whatever I want... this isn't the 2000's

I've got one particular friend with whom I do the communal nibbling at a lettuce leaf thing. I suspect she buys herself a doughnut as soon as we've said goodbye.

I certainly do.

Bizarre, me and my friends all feast.

Not my pals

I love a salad. I also love dessert. Sometimes, someone will say "ooo, shall we share a dessert" and i say "NO!" because I don't share desserts.

I work in a restaurant and it’s actually hilarious taking orders, especially if it’s married couples of a certain age. The woman will say ooh we will share our starter or il just have a few of your fries with my salad, all oh I’ve no appetite, love it when the husbands reveal that they ate a kebab in the car or similar. Best is when it comes to desserts and one orders then everyone else declines so the one that ordered cancels because they can’t eat dessert alone 🤣

Your "nutritionist" friend has some sort of eating disorder and needs serious medical help if she is spouting that nonsense.

Omg this thread alone is so full of competitiveness over food no wonder people in this country don't know what a normal diet is.

I feel better about myself now though. If this is the state of things I'm not surprised I got to the stage where I was 6 stone and starving myself for a week at a time.

OP you and your friends sound just like my sister and her friends, who live mainly in west London.

All of them are in their early forties and between a size 8-10. I've never seen them order anything bigger than a starter in a restaurant (not that that's held me back).

Last month a group of them took part in a show for charity and a couple of them did at home colonic irrigation for three weeks beforehand, involving a hand held bag and a tube!! It did work wonders, but just...wow!

We order what we like. None of us drinks though.
We are all fat.

Ordering a salad isn’t going to make much difference to our weight. That ship has sailed😂

This doesn’t happen with my friends, neither the group think ‘salad for me’ nor the ‘order everything in sight’ that other PPs mention.

What I do get is ‘ooh, aren’t you good !’ when I don’t have a pudding course , and then they get hesitant about the dessert they were about to order.

I don’t have it because I can’t have dairy ( horrible eczema reaction) and most restaurant desserts have cream, butter, chocolate etc. Not that keen on sorbet ( again) and the fruit salad alternative is rarely worth it. Please, have a chocolate mousse or a nice artisan cheese board - I’m not being virtuous , it’s self protection !

Just read OP. Competitive non-eating. I have a few friends where this happens. Exceptionally irritating, especially when I've joined from a long day at work. Nope, I'm hungry and will order an actual meal seeing as we arranged to go fir dinner!!! There is a sharer in the other group. Even worse than the light eaters. No, I am not cutting my main in half. Horrors, but I just order what I want now. With wine.

I eat kebab and chips when I'm at my friends house....in my pyjamas!

(However it's marginally less irritating than make work colleagues who don't invite you to lunch when they go out. I have started teasing them openly about their Mike Pence views of women in the workplace.) Off to start another thread...

I really don't mix with people like this, but if I got stuck having a meal with such a bunch, I would happily bore away at them with feminism and the importance of eating what you want, and not caring about what you look like...

It'd drive me bonkers if my friends weren't capable of making independent decisions!

We do tend to check if anyone else is going for starters, as don't want to be the one holding others up to get their food. I can't think of time when anyone actually let someone else's food choice influence what they were going to eat (or not!) But then we're not salad types

I've certainly not encountered competitive under eating! Or maybe I don't notice that while tucking into my big burger and fries everyone is nibbling lettuce leaves while judging my greedy habits!

They are food fuckers.

I no longer waste any time whatsoever with food fuckers.

Food is lovely, to be enjoyed, it's a wonderful social past time.

Food fuckers are usually issue ridden unhappy sorts who then use their own harsh measuring stick to judge everyone else. It's a desperately miserable existence.

My biggest and most bizarre food fucker experience was with an NCT group meet up. Lunch a few weeks after most babies had arrived. There were almost twenty of us meeting at a very nice restaurant for lunch. The place had a new chef and was getting amazing reviews so I was really looking forward to it, plus new baby so excited to be out getting fed. Got there a little late, started drooling over the menu whilst the staff took orders round the huge table. Soup, soup, soup all the way round the table complete with no bread please. Considering it was a table of mostly bfing new mothers too I was jaw on the floor horrified. I did switch my original 3 course plan to a 1 course yummy with chips but gawd it was one of the worst lunches I have ever been to in my life. Never went back to that group.

I see it in my group.
Usually it's a no to desert and I feel like a glutton so don't order one either.
Having said that I rarely eat a starter as I prefer desert.
They are probably right and will live longer.

I can’t say I’ve experienced this with my mates.

Nobody is on Instagram or anything like that -were too old

Then lord help me and all the other 40/50/60 plus people on there . We even tweet too (and eat chips)