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!

I don't like cake either!

Then can I have yours Gunpowder?

I LOVE cake!

MN eating out threads are so funny. I never knew there was a political minefield when dining out with people who are your actual friends where folks refuse to order food they want, wont order starters/desserts they want unless certain conditions are met by others, they're happy to over pay £40 to substitute friends food and drink drink for fear of them looking skint and evidently they order food they don't want to have because ordering what they want is apparently sometimes ill mannered.

In my world people just go out, order what they want and pay for what they consumed. What Mavericks we are

I had a group of friends in the U.S like this.It was the beginning of the Noughties and the beginning of 'no carbs' .If we ever went out it was fun but they would all sit there talking about how guilty they felt eating what was in front of us.It was the first time I ever heard anyone order ' burger without the bun' .What's the point of a burger without the bun imo? I ate the carbs , they ate salad and left half of that on the plate also.They just could not enjoy good food without feeling guilty.

I always eat loads with my friends

That’s sad. You have some odd friends. My friends are not always on diets, and they don’t copy each other when it comes to food ordering. How old are you all?

Then can I have yours Gunpowder?

You most certainly can (unless it's cheese cake which I love, just can't be doing with that sponge nonsense)

I know lots of people who do this, and none of them are boring.

I have one friend who I used to spend a lot of time with when the children were small. She Never Ate Lunch.

We'd be at some god-awful soft-play or farm, and I'd be ravenous, and she'd just assume we weren't eating.

I was taken-aback the first time and went hungry, but next time blithely ordered my food and ate, while she sipped water.

The thing is, it did take mental effort, so I understand why situations like the OP's arise.

In my world people just go out, order what they want and pay for what they consumed. What Mavericks we are

I like to think of us as anarchists Gunpowder

Thank you for the sponge!

With my friends, we sit and mull over the healthy options knowing we wont order them and then encourage each other to join in on having chips.

Blimey, not with my friends! Ours usually goes something like this:
Sit down, order drinks
Someone: are we doing starters?
Everyone: yes I'm bloody starving (although there is usually one that saves themselves for desert so often doesn't have a starter)
Main courses
Waiter: do you want to look at desert menus?
Everyone: oh no I'm stuffed
Someone: well it wouldn't hurt to look
Everyone has deserts
We all roll home

Had it always been like this OP? It sounds utterly joyless and a complete waste of time, money and energy.

I'm guessing the first to say salad / no dessert is the one who would be considered "alpha" ? The one who is a little bit more bossy and domineering and controlling?

Me and my friends (were late 30's and early 40's) love to meet and eat. And drink wine!!! I'm the only one who is overweight but still I don't eat out often and always go for something I consider a treat.

Definitely not is just went out for dinner - got dessert, very yummy.

Never happens with my friends either. In fact the opposite, I'm going out tonight and worried they'll all laugh at me if I order a salad, but I had a McDonald's for lunch!

Choosing to eat a roast cauliflower salad when you eat out with friends is very unreasonable in my opinion!

I've met a few women like this who frantically oneup you with salad consumption

They've been work people and always tended to get into the biscuits about 3ish because a salad isn't a very filling lunch

I always cheerfully ignored them and had whatever I fancied.

With my friends I have never come across what you describe. Probably becasue I've not noticed that I'm supposed to have a salad, ordered a steak. I can be quite oblivious to this stuff. Also a bit contrary so I quite enjoy getting eg a hot roast lamb sandwich in fresh bloomer for lunch when with salad people.

This is all very gendered as well, in the hot roast meat sandwich shop queue there were always hardly any women compared to men.

However

"When I’m out for dinner with DH, if I say I don’t want dessert, he orders it for me anyway"

This is also weird and I would not like that at all.

You seem to be surrounded by people who are controlling what you eat.

Even if the whole table I was out with was having a salad I would still have what I want, who cares wht any else eats! I honestly don't understand this.

This thread reminds me of the scene in Peter’s Friends where the American woman has water for starters when everyone else has soup.

But the truth is, if I did want to order steak, I think I would feel awkward doing that.

Well that’s a bit sad. Seems like all your friends feel the same.
Whenever we go out to eat we all order what the hell we like, some people will even -shock horror- have a starter AND a pudding as well whilst some of us will have an extra glass of wine rather than a pud.
We are all just happy to be out, enjoying good food/wine and each other’s company. I don’t give a toss what any of my friends order, I don’t scrutinise their plates and judge their choices and I’m sure they don’t care what ( or how much) I eat or drink.

Be brave. Next time order something massive - just to see if you hear a sharp intake of breath if you do, get new friends!

I don't go along with things like that. If someone is first with ordering a salad I make sure I'm second ordering a lasagne, or burger or whatever I actually want. Everyone else generally orders what they want too, whether that is salad or burger or anything else. And we pretty much all always have dessert, it's the best part of the meal!!!

We meet in the local Gail’s quite often and I swear to god, I can’t think of a friend who has ever ordered so much as a muffin. But what they do, is order one for the kids and then share it with them.

There was a thread on here not long ago, which initially started as "CF friends split the bill when they'd had £50 more worth of food and drink" type thread. But it rattled on for a while and got into eating out "etiquette". A surprisingly high number of posters states that they wouldn't have a starter or dessert if everyone else didn't as this is "rude" and they'd rather leave the last slice of garlic bread - even if they wanted it - because that's also "rude" what a waste! It's also rude to not offer to pay the whole bill no matter how big the party- even if this means you eat beans on toast for the next 3 weeks. It makes me wonder how these people were raised with holding such bizarre food issues.

Sorry I mean eating the last slice of garlic bread is rude but leaving it is polite apparently

It's not subconscious, it is virtue-signalling competitive non-eating and not a trait I tolerate among my friends.

Yes, this. It's heavily gendered, internalised 'food is naughty' competitive undereating, and you are blaming other women when you clearly go along with it yourself and are annoyed with yourself about that. I do not choose this kind of person as a friend, but used to see it regularly among the cohort of women at a baby/group I took my son to some years back, because I did the baking weekly in exchange for a lift -- when everyone was sitting together, and the cakes/biscuits were passed around, almost everyone would say no, and I would decide on a weekly basis to stop baking, because it was such a waste. But then, over the next hour, as people were individually in and out of the kitchen area where the cake tin was, most of the cake would gradually disappear surreptitiously, and some people actually took it home to eat it unobserved.

I do not know anyone like this! We are all greedy bastards who eat 3 fat courses plus bread and probably a good bottle of wine each.
I do not like people who don’t eat!

Are your friends excessively concerned with their weight and appearance?

Maybe time to make some new friends?