to feel food gets in the way of friendships these days?

[bringincrazyback]

Vaguely inspired by various threads on here, but not a TAAT as the point I want to make is only tangentially related to those threads.

AIBU to feel that food logistics tend to really get in the way of friendships these days? Perhaps it's just my age, but these days it seems all meetups seem to have to revolve around a meal. It didn't used to be like that. People just used to get together over drinks (I don't necessarily mean a booze-up, I mean a few drinks in a pub, or a cafe in the daytime, or a few coffees at each other's houses) and this used to leave people a lot freer to concentrate on actually making conversation and catching up. Nowadays it seems like it's all about the food, leading to dilemmas about types of food, food intolerances, disagreements over restaurant choices, budgets, whether a specific restaurant is kid-friendly, vegan-friendly, etc etc etc... it just seems to me as though a lot of tensions arise around friendships, purely based on the food element of socialising, and it seems a pity.

I get that food can be a pleasure, but I just think eating out is overrated a lot of the time and I miss the days when it was a really special treat (e.g. for a birthday) rather than an everyday thing like it seems to be now. Plus the whole kerfuffle of deciding what to have, keeping kids under control, having to ask for missing cutlery/condiments etc, constant interruptions from the wait staff, working out how to split the bill, etc etc etc tends to really dull the enjoyment of a meal out for me as it just seems you can't really ever get a conversation going properly. I see my friends to talk to them, not to eat food, and I haven't missed restaurants one iota since lockdown started.

Surely I'm not the only one?

YABU = no, socialising is better with food.
YANBU = sometimes food does get in the way and it would be nice just to concentrate on talking and catching up.

And the missing cutlery bit is odd. Is that something that happens to you a lot?

No, it was a bit of a random example, I'll concede that. But it happens from time to time.

Child ate 1/2 nugget, one spoonful of peas and 2 chips then demanded to know what was for pudding.

Whew, I'd have been miffed too. Your friend sounds pretty entitled and it sounds like she's raising her kid to be the same!

YANBU about food intolerances. The vast majority of these (and I'm not talking about proper allergies or veganism etc but the nonsense ones dreamed up by alternative nutritionists) are just neurosis or a figleaf for anorexia. I have so little patience with this, it takes all the fun out of both friendship and food. If people want to delude themselves that they can't eat wheat fine but I'm not running around catering for them.

Bloody hell. What scientific evidence (if any) are you basing this on? (I see you mention 'proper allergies' but your basis for deciding these sounds like it's pretty subjective.) Are you really saying that if a person is physically ill after eating a certain dish they must be anorexic or neurotic? Just wow.

Bloody hell. What scientific evidence (if any) are you basing this on?

You only have to witness people with very specific "intolerance" to see what the poster means. You can't claim to be gluten intolerant but happily make exception for your morning croissant for example

Some friends and I just always go to the same place-it’s convenient for all of us, no need to try somewhere different, it’s dc friendly and you can be there for ages without being told they need your table. I couldn’t care less where I eat, I’m there to see friends, the food is a bonus.

You can't claim to be gluten intolerant but happily make exception for your morning croissant for example

Personally I don't know anyone who's like this.

I think there have been some cultural changes around food that have influenced socialising.

People eat out far more than they used to, for one thing, and snack more. And the rise of foodie culture can also make a difference. I like to eat, and I like to cook, but sometimes going to eat or making a meal with foodies can be a bit like listening to the hobby talk of people into cycling or marathons.

Then there is cost, and also a lot more people with restrictive eating and diets, and all kinds of different ones.

I think there are ways around all this which aren't too difficult, if people really want to get together. But it does seem more complicated than it did.

@bringincrazyback

YANBU about food intolerances. The vast majority of these (and I'm not talking about proper allergies or veganism etc but the nonsense ones dreamed up by alternative nutritionists) are just neurosis or a figleaf for anorexia. I have so little patience with this, it takes all the fun out of both friendship and food. If people want to delude themselves that they can't eat wheat fine but I'm not running around catering for them.

Bloody hell. What scientific evidence (if any) are you basing this on? (I see you mention 'proper allergies' but your basis for deciding these sounds like it's pretty subjective.) Are you really saying that if a person is physically ill after eating a certain dish they must be anorexic or neurotic? Just wow.

Food restrictive diets are a big fad now, and they aren't scientifically based. There have always been people with celiac disease or lactose intolerance. But the fads for cutting out dairy, cutting out wheat, cutting out meat, cutting out fruit, cutting our nightshade plants, etc - this is all fad stuff.

A lot of it is a cover for orthorexia. I've heard a psychologist from an eating disorder clinic say that 30 years ago, anorexics would cover by saying they were eating low-fat, but now it's always in terms of restricting food groups and clean eating.

Most restaurants do cater for anyone with a food intolerance so it's not the minefield it might have been a few years back. Most adults know what they can and can't have.

However, Someone I know has a nut allergy so she tends to prefer doing her own food rather than risk eating out anywhere as she cannot be 100 percent certain the food may contain traces of nuts or certain oils she cannot have.
It depends on how you feel and deal with it all I guess and mistakes with ingredients can happen sadly.

i have honestly NEVER been to any meal ever where the meal wasn't at least half suitable for vegetarian. I am not asking for any vegetarian to tuck into a raw steak, which are rarely served at weddings to be fair. grin

It was talking in the angle of the person making demands, not the angle of the host. Would you genuinely accept an invitation and tell the host "I am coming but I don't like fish, I don't like sausages, I don't like this and I don't like that"? Not quite the same as warning: I am coeliac or I have a severe nut/shellfish allergy.

I’ve never attended a wedding where the rsvp hasn’t asked for any specific dietary requirements..

Also you’re pretty much expecting someone to attend and sit and eat some veg during a multi hour event. Or for a vegan, possibly nothing (lots of veg cooked in butter). Which would leave most ravenous. I would never want to throw an event and invite someone as my guest and leave them hungry. Poor hosting skills.

YNABU.
You can go along and not eat anything or just order something small.

Warn people first and let them decide if it is acceptable.

No point in wasting food.

The way you write going out for a meal makes it sound like a chore, me and most people I know enjoy it and it’s nice to have food you don’t have to cook yourself and clean up afterward

Don’t take your Kids if they’re a pain in the arse in restaurants?

I don't really understand. I am almost 40 and even in the 90s I would meet my friends in McDonald's or similar. I am teetotal, as are many of my friends but we never met in pubs back then because of the smoking.

Food would always be involved on nights out too as we would want to eat at some point in the evening and would normally be coming straight from work and stay out till midnight.

My friends work during the day so we can't go to cafes and at weekends, they are with their families. Not to mention quite a few of my friends live in houses shares so we couldn't pop to theirs for coffee.

We have never had an issue going for food. We each pick a place going round in turns. I can't have dairy, one friend is veggie, another vegan but we always manage.

Oh and none of us ever bring children to our meet ups. I am child free, another craves time away and the others leave with their partners

@bringincrazyback

You can't claim to be gluten intolerant but happily make exception for your morning croissant for example

Personally I don't know anyone who's like this.

I do. Many guests at my wedding who chose the vegetarian option then got miffed when they missed out on fruits de mer for the starter.

We’d offered vegetarian and not vegetarian and specifically asked for any other categories, ingredients, etc to include/avoid. No one piped up and said pescatarian.

Though the wedding was in France. By the ocean. In winter (shellfish season).

I also don’t encounter this, and it seems your friends are more acquaintances from the way they dropped you.

We do “ fancy this place” yeah sure. Job done. Things like missing condiments don’t exactly stress us out.

I've been thinking about this issue, lately, but for me it's family gatherings rather than friends meeting up.

I never had a problem with gatherings centered on meals or specifically planned to include a big meal, back when I was young, had perfect digestion, and could eat whatever I wanted. There might be a few joking comments about breaking diets, but it never felt like anyone else had problems with it, either. We had plenty of good food, and it was nice.

Now, it does seem that there are more of us with food sensitivities or other digestive woes. Several people have taken to more extreme diets (like Keto)-- the type of thing where it's not as easy to just "cheat" on your diet for one meal and make up for it with a long walk that afternoon. It feels like somewhat more of a fuss, and I sometimes wish we'd have gatherings where food wasn't so much the focus, but it seems difficult to break the tradition, at this point. (Not for the larger gatherings, at least.) I'm not sure anyone else would even want a change!

@bringincrazyback

Yes, but not the thing they all want to do.

So my wanting to do different things occasionally wasn't valid and I should have just kowtowed to what others wanted all the time?

I never said that, you're extrapolating.

Given how much you dislike eating out, how much they love it and some actually dropped you for it, you were clearly not compatible in your choice of activities you want to undertake.

I genuinely do not comprehend this weird fashion of submitting a menu to your guests for approval

I have never done that and I don't know anyone else who has. But I've also never had a meal where people cared so little about their guests that they were expected to eat only the parts of their meal that were suitable. As a PP has said, if it's a pate starter is a vegetarian only going to get the toast? And what if it's, say, coq au vin for the main - are they expected just to pick out the vegetables from a plate of meat in meaty sauce?

Jesus wept, I've been to some pretty fancy dinners but I have never ever encountered dietary needs/preferences not being catered for.

OP I’ve literally never experienced this!

@BrightYellowDaffodil you'd be amazed. Fancy pants six course 'function' at a hotel a few years back which promised to cater for vegetarians. Of the six courses, my vegetarian father could eat... the bread roll that came with the soup, and the dessert. That was it. Everything else had meat in it. That was probably the worst occasion, but he has also been served up dry pasta, 'vegetable' soup made with chicken stock, and the line he heard more than any other 'can't you just pick the meat out/wipe the sauce off the vegetables?'

Things are much better these days, but if we ever went out for a meal, we'd always save the bread rolls for him in case of meaty contamination of all the other dishes

Jesus wept, I've been to some pretty fancy dinners but I have never ever encountered dietary needs/preferences not being catered for.

I can't think of many formal diners I have been invited to where the host presented several options and ask what the preferences were beforehand.

People with genuine dietary need don't tend to wait for the question, they let the host know when they accept the invitation.

I don't know, when we are invited for diner, we are just asked if xyz date is suitable. No one is asking us what we would like to eat?

No one is asking us what we would like to eat?

Obviously the onus is on the guest to say if there's something they can't eat but it would be polite for the host to enquire. I always ask if there's anything they can't or really don't want to eat, it's not difficult.

but when the host doesn't, do you give them a list of things you dislike? I honestly don't. It wouldn't even occur to me. Allergies obviously.

There was a thread where a poster was clearly telling her guests that she was making xyz (I think it was lasagna in the thread, can't remember) to ensure it was acceptable to everybody. It's not that common.

@SantaClaritaDiet if it was something I really couldn't stomach (like, say, aniseed which makes me feel sick) then I'd mention it if it was a relatively informal meal and/or someone I knew well. If it was a formal meal I'd accept that I'd have to take my chances.

I'd also flag up anything I was intolerant/allergic to or being vegetarian etc (if applicable) but then I'd also expect to be asked unless they knew me well enough to know already.

The way you write going out for a meal makes it sound like a chore
Don’t take your Kids if they’re a pain in the arse in restaurants?

I do sometimes find it a chore, yes. I don't have kids btw.