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!

My friends are all greedy cows, as am I.

We always, always have pudding, too .

I don't know anyone who orders salads a main meal on a night out. I wouldn't have a problem if anyone did, but it wouldn't make me feel like I had to follow suit. I don't think it's that common for everyone to order the same irrespective of whether or not it's a salad. Usually it's the other way around imo ( annoyance that someone else ordered what you wanted and going to plan b )

I once went away with three female friends. Self-catering cottage but owners had filled the fridge for a cooked breakfast. I was prepared to be chef on the first morning and asked what everyone wanted on their cooked breakfast. You’d have thought I was offering a dog-shit omelette. Every one of them had a bowl of muesli with fucking yoghurt and berries and there was much umming and oohing between mouthfuls as to how lovely it was. I could have slapped them all round the head with a raw rasher of bacon. I did however cook myself a full English. And bloody lovely it was too. 😄

Gooden - no I don’t think it has anything to fmdu with who is paying tbh. I meet with these friends once a month and we roughly take it in turns. I’ve noticed it everywhere though - in cafes and even when people come to our home. Also I think it’s escalating somehow.

It’s even more noticeable for me as I have one DS (15) who is 6 ft 5; another one not far behind; and then DH and they eat so much I can’t keep up. It’s exhausting just getting the food in. When they’re away , the shopping bill is a fraction. The DS” will eat something like a roast dinner and and pudding and then be getting cereal 2 hours later. Then I have 2 younger girls who are failrly normal, (though one very fussy). So when we’d go out as a family there’s none of this.

I have one female friend who loves steak and orders it every time we go out.

No we all have fries as we never make them at home!

How bizarre. I meet up for lunch and we all do mains and desserts. Generally we all drive so no booze, just endless refills of shite diet fizzy drinks.

This is West - SW London.

Same area as me but I don’t know anyone who eats like this.

I have some very appearance conscious SAHM neighbours who literally do nothing but exercise and beauty treatments, but I don’t have lunch with them enough to know their eating habits.

It’s possible they may indulge this stuff, but they’re too boring to spend extended time with.

I love meeting up with my friends, shall we have a side order if fries and onion rings with that? Umm yes! Dessert- yes please. If we're meeting for food we go all out. I've never ever seen one of my friends order a salad.

Complete mix amongst my frIemds. Some say they are starving and eat two prawns and then declare themselves stuffed, more have a starter but only a sliver of pudding and cheese. A few (tends to be skinny ones, unfairly) eat everything and want seconds of pudding or some of each pudding.
We don’t generally need permission to eat what or how much we want.

Nah not with mine.

We love eating!

I’d have smashed those fries to bits.

Also this has literally never happened with any of my friends. Sometimes girls at work will go for a healthy salad option. I tend to go for it when I’m eating out 🍔🍟😋 life’s too short

Some serious competitive overeating from people on here (I'll have a starter, main and dessert and wine and bread-good for you?!). I'll order what I like and so will my friends but what's wrong with having a salad? Friends definitely shouldn't judge what you eat.

Blimey no. I don't recognise any of that behaviour and I eat with different groups of friends regularly.

You have some very weird friends IMO.
This has never happened in any of the hundreds of meals I've eaten out with other people. That includes when I've gone out with close friends, or with people I don't know as well - new friends from a hobby or new colleagues or whatever.
Since hitting my mid 40s, I realised I no longer have the capacity to eat what I did when I was a teen and in my 20s - I would struggle now with a starter, main and pudding, tbh - but I would always choose what I want off the menu, and expect anyone I'm eating with to do the same. Your meals out sound really joyless, if I'm honest.

I've not come across that sort of thing amongst friends, but it DOES annoy me when people at work (we have a staff dining room - posh school) say things like "Oh I shouldn't" or "I'm being naughty" etc.
If you want roast potato then bloody have one!

Depends on the friends.

My work friends are the same, I also had some mummy friends who felt a lettuce leaf was bordering on indulgence.

My dog friends I have to fight for the bread and butter.

My MIL is like this, especially if we go out for lunch. She gets in a flustered if she's chosen a hot meal and the first person who orders chooses a sandwich as she thinks she's got it wrong somehow. It's infuriating as she's never get what she wants, she'll get what she thinks people want her to get when in reality nobody cares.

It's amazing how many posters have never ever encountered such a strange notion in their lives it's not something I do, or that my friends do (thank goodness!) but I've observed it in the more image-conscious groups of people I've spent time with and it is definitely A Thing.

I love salads and routinely eat salads for lunch or dinner, especially in the summer. I also low carb a lot so I actually do order burgers without the bun if that’s what I fancy. But I absolutely detest competitive self-denial and deprivation, and I certainly wouldn’t be playing along with it in a situation like this because I resent the expectation that as a woman I’m supposed to sit there gingerly pushing food round my plate and feeling somehow virtuous about it. Fuck that shit And the idea of ordering food ‘for the table’ that nobody then eats really irritates me - I actually would make a point of saying, ‘well if no one else is going to go for the fries, I’m definitely going to have some’, and hopefully my willingness to do so might encourage someone else to ‘let loose’ and shock, horror, actually have a few!

Hasn't ever happened with my friends either but we do sound each other out about what to get in the sense that we would all choose to either have or not have a starter or pudding. But that's more a case of not wanting to keep others waiting.

I understand about the shared chips though and probably wouldn't have eaten them if others didn't even though I would have wanted to...

I have a friend like this - will always order the salad and will always judge you for whatever you order. I just don’t let it bother me. I know she’s got a disordered relationship with food so I try and just be really postitive back.

Should have said I eat salads at home but I don’t usually find restaurant salads very inspiring (depending on the venue), so I don’t really like to pay for them when I can generally make a much better one myself.

When I am eating out it’s an occasion for me, I want to chill, relax, enjoy myself. I don’t want to be fussing over things and I really resent it if people expect me to play along with their weird food hang ups.