Or at least what I think is an eating disorder.
I go on holiday with a friend every so often, and she has asked me to join her on a city break later this month. I love her and usually enjoy her company, but her attitude to food has got to the point where I don’t want to go.
If I leave anything on my plate there is a huge fuss made about wasting food. She will have my leftover food boxed up and carry it around for the rest of the evening. Nothing wrong with that if it was substantial, but it’s even if it’s a few carrots or a couple of spoonfuls of soup, and she makes such a big thing of it, always with questions like ‘how much do you waste at home? You should keep anything you don’t finish at home and have it for your next meal until it’s gone’. On one occasion, she took back to our hotel a bit of pie I hadn’t finished, and had the filling for dinner one evening and the pastry the next, and refused to order any dinner while I ate because she’d had the leftovers.
She also decided exactly what restaurants we’re eating in before we arrive on holiday, and there is no leeway. She will quiz the waiters about the food and their suggestions for a lengthy time to find out if it’s local food etc before she orders, and it’s embarrassing. She has woken me up in the morning to show me the menu of where we’re eating that night. She makes a huge fuss of having to have exactly what she wants to eat at exactly where she wants to eat, and never ever consults me. If I offer up alternatives she’ll say (huffily) ‘well we can go there but no, I won’t be eating there. I want something healthier/more local/less expensive/not as touristy’ etc.
Sometimes she’ll come to restaurants she hasn’t chosen, refuse to eat, then ask if she can have people’s leftovers when they’ve finished.
She got so thin at one point that she was hospitalised with exhaustion and told to lay off exercise for a while. I have never asked her about whether she thinks she has an eating disorder, although she did say on our last holiday that she did get too thin at one point.
She knows she’s controlling about food and has asked if it bothers me. I have said it does, but she never changes.
I know that she’s probably ill, but WIBU to refuse to go on holiday with her any more? It’s a shame because otherwise I adore her company and have known her many years, and we live on opposite sides of the country so we really only get to see each other when we go away.
AIBU to stop holidaying with her because of this when it is likely she can’t help it? Should I go and try and be supportive?