‘Go on, don’t be boring’

[HellloBambinos]

This is food related.

I’ve lost 10lb since lockdown and gone from an overweight BMI to a healthy one. I’d like to lose a little more weight but I love food so I’ve settled on sensible, healthy eating during the week and indulging a little on weekends. It’s been working great for me and I’m happy avoiding treats in the week.

A friend wants to meet this week and she wants to have a takeaway fish and chips picnic. I’ve said I’d love to meet up but I don’t want fish and chips and she said the above. She keeps going on about it. I’ve had other people do this before and it really pisses me off and makes it harder to be healthy.

AIBU to think this is really annoying or am I just a grumpy sod who needs to lighten up?

She's a tosser. (She's also probably feeling guilty about eating fish and chips if you're not - I get this a lot if I'm not drinking, it's like people take it as a personal affront if you won't drink).

She's the one that sounds boring going on about sodding fish and chips. Why does she give a shiny shit about what you're eating? If fish and chips is what brings excitement to her life, she can have some fish and chips and you eat what you would like.

YANBU really. Do you want fish and chips? Could you have it as your weekend treat and meet her then, or have it mid week instead of one of your weekend treats?

It sounds like you have other plans for your treat ration, which is fair enough.

She should respect you are on a diet/trying to lose weight. There are plenty of healthy options for a picnic. Fish and chips is far laden and nearly 700 calories I think.

Tell her that if eating fish and chips on a picnic is her idea of 'not being boring', then she should really do more with her life.

Eat exactly what you feel like.

do they not sell salads in UK fish & chip shops

Er, no. They sell fish and chips. Maybe pies and sausages too, not always.

They're the original traditional UK takeaway, from a time long before anyone worried about healthy eating, because they were more concerned with a) getting enough to eat and b) sustaining themselves enough to work through 12 hour shifts down the pit, in a factory, or running a home without labour saving appliances.

Wow, normally mumsnet is an absolute bastion of intolerance for fussy eating

Only when it affects others, most commonly observed when there's always one person within a family or friendship group who 'can't eat' X, Y or Z so always tries to dictate restaurant choices, to fit their usually pedestrian preferences for something like beige and chips or chain restaurants selling mediocre food. Often with a side order of 'euuwww, I couldn't possibly eat that' if they see anything outside their comfort zone.

When you're having a get together where everyone gets their own food, no-one cares what others eat.

Just say you don't like fish and chips. People do seem determined to sabotage healthy/dieting eating

She sounds like a control freak.

I wouldn’t eat fish and chips, the fish because I’m veggie, but the chips because grease soaked potato isn’t appealing and it doesn’t really have any flavour.

Me, my son and my boyfriend have been taking picnics out and about. I usually have a salad, some pulses etc as does my son. My boyfriend is like your friend and will happily eat a meal that doesn’t include veg, his picnic choices today are cheese and onion rolls and bread sticks. Eating different food isn’t boring, its completely normal and an actual adult would recognise that.

Do they not sell salads in UK fish & chip shops ? You’d be hard pressed to find a fish & chip shop here that wouldn’t have salad on the menu

No. Alas, because I actually adore chips with a huge green salad, something crunchy and cold with a mustardy dressing. My husband thinks this is deeply weird.

Pick the batter off your fish and have five of her chips. Job done. Make the five chips your 'price' for doing what she wants to do
Don't be silly. Why on earth should she when she can bring along exactly what she wants and actually enjoy it?

Pick the batter off your fish and have five of her chips. Job done. Make the five chips your 'price' for doing what she wants to do.

Or, better still, not have the fish and chips that she doesn’t want or particularly like, and, being an adult, have something that she does want.

OP, stick to your guns. There’ll always be people out there who will question others’ choices or try to undermine them. It doesn’t matter why, who cares? Just do what makes you happy.

You need to be firmer with her - stop making references or telling her you’re not fussed, and tell her what you’ve said here: that you have been trying to lose weight, and you don’t want to spend your “treats” on fish and chips. Suggest something else that you can have instead. If she pushes it, tell her that, while you can appreciate that maybe she’s been really looking forward to F&C again, you’re not being “boring” and she is being unsupportive.

To start with I did think you were not wanting to indulge because of healthy eating, if you dont like fish and chips thats fair enough. Have you told your friend you dont like fish and chips or just that they are too unhealthy ? Your weight loss does not even seem relevant.

Just say your happy for her to get fish and chips and you'll bring along what you want to eat.

I guess she’s pushing because she might then feel funny about having them alone (not that that’s down to you op!). She might want a treat or class them as a bit naughty so might feel better if someone else was too!

I see this around drinking, if I chose to not drink or others who are out it’s a chorus of ‘don’t be boring’ or ‘are you pregnant’ when the reality was, in the olden days of pubs, I just didn’t want to feel like shite the next day and was trying to lose weight!

She can’t dictate what you eat ,, I have had people do this then they get all shirty when you don’t comply

Your friend is not being very supportive

However, you're not helping by banging on, judging, her choice of food! If you had just said it don't fancy that, why don't you have F&C and ill bring something I fancy it would probably have been fine, but banging on about being 'healthy'And F&C being unhealthy IS judgemental & boring

Friday is National Fish & Chips Day.

Shes pushing it with you so she won't feel bad for eating fatty food.Ignore.

@KelpHelper I totally agree! I love hot and cold food together 🤤 Greek salad and chips mmm mmm

YANBU.
It drives me mad when people comment on what I'm eating, or not eating or I'm being 'naughty' or 'good'.

I usually just say nothing, leaving an awkward silence.

My experience of having lost weight a few years ago is that literally nothing can pass your lips without someone commenting on it.....if it's fruit / veg healthy stuff you get comments about being a rabbit and "is that all you live on" sort of comments, if you eat anything remotely "naughty" then it's "oooh should you be eating that", "surely you're not allowed cake" etc. It drove me crazy for about a year until I think people got used to me being a smaller size. I don't think one of my colleagues at the time knows how lucky he was not to find a stick of celery embedded where the sun don't shine!!
If you want chips then have them as a treat, if you don't then don't.

She wants fish and chips.
You don’t want fish and chips.

The reasons for this are immaterial to be honest. It would be different if you were going round her house for a meal and we’re dictating what she was preparing.

What would her attitude be if you said you were going to buy a Chinese takeaway instead? In other words, is her issue that you’ll be eating something different, or is her issue that you’ll be eating something healthy?

*we’re dictating = were dictating

People are such wankers around what other people put into their own bodies! I think I'd either lose patience and tell her exactly what I think of her trying to manipulate me, or I'd just call off the meeting with an excuse if I couldn't be bothered with that.

Not respecting others' food choices is very similar to not respecting somebody's right to not be touched - it's a bodily integrity thing and it absolutely sucks that there are people even on this thread trying to downplay and rationalise it. She doesn't enjoy fish and chips, why the hell should she "use it as her treat day" when "treat days" may not be within her model anyway, and it's not a treat to her?!

Always be sure? Really? Some people must have some very odd friends.

@Bluesheep8

Do you honestly have no one in your life who you would casually use the word friend for, but who doesn't really fulfil that niche?

One of my best friends is from university. In the 'we know what's going on in each other's lives and care about each other' sense.

I see her as often with a mutual friend, a woman we both flat shared with at university. I don't chit chat much with the mutual friend, and she's actually quite the bitch. But it would devastate my actual friend if I cut her out, and I wouldn't do that to her.

She's really a frenemy, but for the sake of casual conversation, I'd say 'friend'.

I don't know anyone in real life who is able to neatly compartmentalise their life into exclusively people they like.

This sort of thing drives me mad and it's one of the reasons I have big protective walls up around myself which few people get inside. This might sound over the top but I've had years of having to deal with people pushing my boundaries. I don't cope well when people go on and on and on about something and push, push, push. I try to tell them calmly but by the time I've said something 10 times I tend to get snappy and then there's uproar.
I really don't understand why people continue to push like that when they've politely been told no.

It's happened to me with food things, alcohol, going out to parties and people pushing too much to get personal information and gossip out of me.
I suppose my strategies aren't very good for dealing with this so now I just have my walls up and let few people in.

With this friend I'd tell her one more time that you won't be eating the fish and chips and will bring your own food. If she then continues to push tell her you'll meet her another time for a different activity instead. She can always find another friend to go for fish and chips with.
But I suspect when she finally realizes you won't be moved on this issue she'll get annoyed with you and make you out to be the bad one.

I don't think I could be bothered with her to be honest. Most reasonable people would just accept what you say and your reasons and leave it at that.