British "lunch" times at the weekend - why so late?

[Howdoyoulikeyoureggsinthemorning]

Riddle me this, MN. (I'm British myself btw).

Been invited to yet another pub "lunch" with the family. What time have they booked? 3pm!!!!

I just don't understand this tradition.

At school, lunch is usually 12ish, if not 1ish.

At work, lunch is usually 12ish, if not 1ish.

For this reason, most of us have been pretty conditioned to get hungry around the same time of day.

So whenever I'm invited to one of these super late lunches, I end up either:

• Making a pre-lunch for myself anyway because I'm too damn hungry to wait (which often leads to overeating that day...)
• Waiting until I'm so weak that I barely feel like socializing by the time I'm in company (morning ruined) and just counting the seconds till food is in front of me...

Oh, and these late lunches always ruin my appetite for dinner as well!

What gives?

YABU: Weekend lunches are not, nor should they be, like weekday lunches.

YANBU: You're correct and the standard for all pub lunches/roasts/buffets should be brought forward a couple of hours.

What about a Sunday though?
We have slightly later meals in the week but we have 9-5 jobs.
If I’m making a roast at the weekend it will still be around our normal dinner time, I’d never make it for 2/3pm.

It’s not about ‘normal’ eating times though. I get that most people have dinner at different ones.

It’s about being so inflexible that you can’t possibly push a meal time out to socialise with friends or even work out your eating for the rest of the day. For one day. So you’d just not go. Or go and be a bit cross about it.

It’s never happened. Regular meals is not a preference that needs to seriously limit anyone’s social life. Nobody has ever suggested I should eat lunch at three o’ clock, and the evangelical zeal of certain people on here who claim that anyone who finds the idea unpleasant is somehow weird or inadequate is getting a bit tiresome.
Anyway, any suggestion may be for one day but that always sets a precedent.
I suppose the closest I’ve experienced has been lunch time barbecues that take ages to get going. It’s probably better to have gone but eating crisps for an hour or more when I want lunch is pretty unpleasant.

I guess I can see why people might do this if they tend to have a lie-in and a late breakfast at the weekend, but I'd find it a bit annoying tbh. I'm always up by 8,have breakfast soon after and would be starving by 3pm!

Maybe there’s a reason you’ve never been invited out to lunch at 3 then. If you’ve been angrily eating crisps because at a ‘lunchtime’ BBQ they have been a bit late to serve food! How dare they delay your lunch at a specific time…

Most BBQs I go to end up serving food around 4, I’m just happy to be fed. I’d never expect to be fed straight away at a BBQ anyway. They are relaxed affairs…

Like I said, some people need to relax a bit about their set mealtimes. Or yes don’t go out. Stay in and eat at your set times just in case your hosts overrun a little. Or shock horror, book the later lunch sitting.

@NoNameNowAgain

poor thing

i don’t know how you got through it I really don’t

Are you rigid about breakfast times? A lot of people have a much more relaxed, later breakfast on a Sunday. Perhaps that's part of the reason.

I imagine that most adults, barring any health issues, are able to be flexible about what time they eat occasionally. Likewise bedtimes, breakfast and so on. Because they're not toddlers.

The very few people I've ever encountered who are RIGID in their sleep/food/whatever needs are just being bloody minded as far as I can tell. If lunch is late, eat a snack. If it's early, go easy on breakfast.

And so on.

If an adult (again, barring any specific health needs) created a drama over eating lunch a couple of hours late on a relatively rare occasion, I'd silently roll my eyes and make a mental note not to bother them again.

Well, at a barbecue crisps are usually available so I eat them. Most people do. I’m not aware of any underlying health issues.
Why should everyone be like you? Why can’t people have different likes and dislikes.

Fairislefandango
I think that's probably the big difference.

The people who are up relatively early and still eat breakfast 7-8.30am on a weekend are probably going to eat very differently and probably have a different approach to weekends than people who wake later, have a later breakfast/brunch around 10/11am.

As a rule I like to do something on the morning, have lunch, do something on the afternoon, have dinner. If dinner is anywhere between 5-8pm I don't really mind as it doesn't affect what I can do in the day. Mid morning/mid afternoon food bookings basically involve doing nothing for half a day, which I don't like.

I am a healthy weight. Well obviously it’s not a need. I’m not going to die but it’s extremely unpleasant.
strangely enough I’d be fine not eating, or eating very little for the rest of the day (although I don’t think the rest of the household would so that would also be annoying). The really unpleasant hunger is almost entirely a morning and lunchtime thing. I normally try not to snack.
As I said above I have lots of pub lunches (usually before, during or after some other activity) but nobody I know wants to eat at three o’ clock. It’s really not an issue. Kindred spirits (like the OP) tend also to be thin.

Change your thinking so it’s early dinner 🤷‍♀️ I mean, by the time you’ve waited for the stragglers to arrived, ordered and then waited for the food to arrive, it’s likely to be close to 4pm anyway. Have a light lunch at 12, maybe a crumpet, and then another crumpet around 8.30-9ish. Same amount of calories and you’ll feel full.

"Regular set meals don't limit my social life except it's PROBLEMATIC IF OTHER PEOPLE DON'T CHOOSE TO EAT AT THE SAME TIMES I ARBITRARILY SET IN MY OWN LIFE AND I CAN ONLY COPE WITH THIS BY STUFFING MY FACE WITH CRISPS, WHICH I FIND PRETTY UNPLEASANT."

Yep, it sounds like you've got this sussed.

Mid morning/mid afternoon food bookings basically involve doing nothing for half a day, which I don't like.

The thing you would be doing for half a day is "going out for a nice time with your friends", which seems a strange thing not to like doing.

Why all the capitals?
The sixty forty voting suggests that a significant minority do find a 3pm lunch pretty unpleasant. Why does that make you so angry?

Capitals to replicate the emotional state it appears you get in when you are faced with such a dreadful imposition as not eating exactly when you wanted to. (Even though, in this case, it's all timetabled in, so you can adjust your eating before or after if you can't cope without somethign in your gob for an hour or two.)

I'm not angry at all. I find it laughable and a bit pathetic that you can't cope very well with the time when other people might choose to eat or are available to eat and think it tiresome and unpleasant.

And I'm laughing at the idea that agreeing to eating at 3pm might "set a precedent", as if that is some line that can't be crossed.

It's the sort of behaviour I would expect from a toddler, not an adult.

Yes, its a sad outlook on life, isn't it?

Some things are better done during the day: outdoor sport, gardening, looking at gardens and more or less anything that requires energy whereas eating and drinking can be done in the evening. It’s a perfectly valid outlook.

You aren’t angry but you are using upper case to convey your disgust. You are the one trying to shame me for admitting to feeling hungry and eating crisps.
It’s astonishing how rigid and intolerant people who think the only rule is that there are no rules can be.
I don’t think you are in any position to judge my emotions.
You aren’t very reasonable so I’m leaving it there.

You're the one introducing words like shame and disgust and saying "[eating lunch at...] anything later than one is pure torture." Torture!

Even as a joke, I suggest that that is highly abnormal language to use in these circumstances and suggests an unhealthy relationship with food. Many of us have or have had unhealthy relationships with food, including me, and I think it pays to recognise where and when we do.

The thing you would be doing for half a day is "going out for a nice time with your friends", which seems a strange thing not to like doing.
Well not really because going for lunch isn't a half day thing. 🤷‍♀️
Lunch takes the same amount of time whether it's done within the lunch window (booking at 12-2) or 3pm.

The difference is that booking at lunchtime means I can do things either side of lunch, but booking at 3pm means spending more of the day having additional snacks/mini meals to accommodate eating half way through the afternoon, and then there's less time to do things.

There's lots of things I enjoy doing, lots of friends/family I like to see, and only 2 days in a weekend.

Thankfully, most of my friends have a similar outlook and also like to do things on a weekend other than hang around having lie ins, late morning brunches and lunching mid-afternoon.