To despair that so many people have appalling table manners?

[Redpanda99]

Maybe I am just old fashioned, but when did it become acceptable for people to make loud slurping and lip smacking noises, chew with their mouths open, talk with their mouths full, scrape their fork against their teeth with every mouthful...aaargh!!! Whatever happened to good table manners? How can people eat and drink so noisily with no consideration for the people they are with? Surely it can't just be me who finds it disgusting? It gives me the rage!

Oh you object to how some people write as well? Awesome!

My FIL starts to eat the second he puts anything on his plate, whilst i'm still dishing up (a sunday roast for example) to everyone else and people are still helping themselves etc. He's practically finished by the time i even sit down to my meal. Pisses me right off. I've got to the point where i just say, "Please can you just wait for everyone else, thanks". But it doesn't really stop him.

I also wince when someone holds their knife like a pen.

Loud gulping and slurping and getting a good view of someone's half masticated food on their open gob are all revolting and I think you should be legally allowed to stab the offender with your fork.

In.
And, tbh, sometimes on. 😁

I think it's absolutely fine to be relaxed about these things in your own home or in a relaxed restaurant with close friends/families.
But...you have to be aware that in certain social situations you will be silently judged for lack of (table) manners. And by not teaching these societal norms to your children they too will be judged as they get older.
It would be great if this didn't happen but I think we need to teach our children to thrive in the world we live in, not an ideal world we wish would exist

My husband eats really fast.
I tell him it's ok. I know I'm fat but I promise I'm not going to steal your food. 😁

This fork in the left hand thing is something I've only seen here in Britain, growing up in North America it's definitely not a thing. As long as you eat without making noise and be courteous otherwise who cares what hand you hold your knife and fork? Bizarre thing to judge someone about!

Oh you object to how some people write as well? Awesome
Yep, I feel it reflects badly on me as a fellow left-hander! Only internally of course, wouldn't dream of saying anything.

I have terrible misophonia and noisy eating gives me the rage. Sometimes I just have to leave the table (I pretend to need the loo) to avoid the worst excesses of my DBiL who eats with his mouth open. When he's not eating I get on rather well with him, but when he loudly sucks each finger in turn to signal his appreciation of his food I could take an axe to his head. Obviously he has no idea how bad his habits make me feel, but I think there should be awards like the Queen's Honours List for people with misphonia who manage to get through the year without murdering anyone!

I did wonder if it was because I was brought up to believe that noisy eating is really bad manners, but apparently there's a strong genetic element to misophonia. I met a long-lost cousin who grew up with an entirely different family and he has the exact same reaction to excess slurping and crunching.

A friend's partner had such bad misphonia that he couldn't travel on a train in case someone sat near him and had a bag of crisps. He also decided not to have children in case they were noisy eaters, so I feel I have got off quite lightly with just a bit of rage at the odd family dinner.

Eating at a table is a relatively new invention taking into account millions of years of history.

Plenty of people in the world eat from the floor - with their hands.

There was a time that I berated myself for not having 'family' meals around a table. But it didn't suit us. And we eat probably better than many other people nutritonally speaking. So I opted for 'grazing' - saves work, better when it is hot and nutritionally pretty sound (so far). I'm not convinced it isn't cheaper either as from the fridge the parties involved can load what they want and disappear into their rooms.

I love eating at a table when it is served up to me. And I love food. But family life shouldn't have to conform to someone else's expectation of it, surely?

Teen dating TV programme. Lovely young woman meets equally lovely young man waiting for her at the table. "Ooh, knives and forks! I don't use those myself".🤔

Meh table manners is not my hill. I’m always interested in the stuff that bothers people. It reminds me that we are all human and we all have our stuff.

My mother was a grammar pedant, that is the “thing” that I was schooled on most in childhood and something I notice probably more than most as a adult now. I think all of these “bug bear” things probably stem from childhood conditioning.

Cutting up food with a fork, why do that, you've got a knife right there.

Some cutlery is designed to be used in a left or right hand and doesn't work well in the 'wrong' hand. Cake and fish knives can often only be used in the right hand and cake / pastry forks are designed to be used in the right hand.

One of my friends, who is right handed, uses his knife and fork in the wrong hands, and he 'holds' the food with his knife and then uses his fork to drag the food apart.

It just looks so messy.

The odd thing is that when he only has a knife, to cut a slice of bread for instance he uses his right hand.

I'm really old fashioned, I think you do not know where your children may end up in life, knowing how to use cutlery correctly, in the correct order is one less thing to worry about if you are dining with the queen.

So is using chop sticks correctly (including when and how to put them down) and eating with your hand.

Would the left handers use their left hand if you were at dinner in a Muslim household? Assuming eating with your hands.

I'm right handed, but was taught to use a knife and fork by my left handed mother, and eat with my cutlery in the "wrong" hands. TBH I really don't give a shit what any random snob thinks about that.

I don't chew with my mouth open, or speak with my mouth full, because it's disgusting, and my kids no better than to do that. Visiting children, not so much, but I'll ask them politely not to do it.

Elbows on the table don't particularly bother me, but my husband hates it.

We all wait to start eating until everyone has their food, the only exception is when we're eating out if someone's main course is delayed and others are going to get cold.

What is it with this discrimination against left handers?

It is not rude in any way to hold your knife in your left hand, and to say so is rude and discriminating. I am right handed and if i was cutting a steak with my knife in my non dominant (left) hand I would be very clumsy and probably end up with food on the table.

So please stop saying that people are using cutlery in "the wrong hands". This is the 21st century not the Victorian era.

Using the ''wrong'' hand or elbow on tables don't bother me.

It is no so much about etiquette for me and more about people who are messy eaters, which I don't like: chewing with your mouth open, making a lot of noise, talking with a mouth full of food, leaking your fingers, picking your teeth. I find that disgusting.

I was once having lunch with my line manager and she started using two fingers to gather the last of the sauce in her plate then stuck them in her mouth. She did that until there was nothing left. I really would not expect this of a mature adult...

I would not want to be friend with and certainly would not date anyone who did not have decent table manners in that sense.

Don't think I would notice if someone had their knife and fork the 'wrong' way round, and I don't get why elbows on the table is rude, it's just a comfortable way to sit, and you lift them up when you're eating anyway.

But noisy eating I can't stand. I have a relative who is bizarrely strict with her kid about 'asking to leave the table' and finishing everything on his plate but doesn't seem to care about him eating with his mouth open, it's grim. Doesn't even make sense, isn't it easier to keep your mouth shut when you eat then there's no risk of your food falling out?

As far as I’m concerned as long as someone can get the food from the plate to their mouth without making a mess, chew and swallow without making disgusting sounds, showing me the contents of their mouth or spitting food everywhere, their table manners are fine. I couldn’t care less which hand they hold their fork in, whether they hold a knife like a pencil, eat everything with a spoon or even use their fingers, as long as they can do it without making a mess or putting anyone else off I don’t care.

I am left handed and the rest of the family are righties. All my kids eat with the knife in their left and fork in their right as I do because I am the one who taught them how to use cutlery.

There is no open mouth chewing or any other disgusting habits because I, and two of the DC, have misophonia and cannot bear it. For that reason we always have background music on at mealtimes too.

I am a TA in a primary school and I work lunchtimes. I have taught my class about using cutlery, keeping mouths closed whilst chewing and saying please and thank you to the dinner ladies. They've picked it up beautifully tbh, they're good kids

👏 👏

I was in the cinema the other day not far from someone who was slurping VERY loudly.

I gave a considered response 'Could you do that a bit louder please?'

They DID. But it didn't last long as they got bored. Thank goodness.

My new approach - not getting stressed by these things but approaching them with humour...😀

My dad was left handed he has passed on now bless him.

He told me at school they used to tie his left hand behind his back.

It is historical apparently. People used to say left handers were witches.

To me they are simply very special.

That's funny, I purposely give the younger ones their dinner to eat first because they're slow, so as I'm serving up I stagger the plates so we roughly finish on time.

as for elbows on the table
I used to think it was tripe but it turns out tiny elbows are capable of BIG spills!