Vegan inviting themselves to join a dinner resulting in everyone having a crap dinner

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I was away with work meeting several international colleagues.

3 of us were staying in the same direction & decided we'd head back together & get some dinner on the way. The quiet girl, let's call her Mary, heard us & said she was staying in the same general direction & would leave with us. We had no problem with this & so once we were finished up that drink we left the general group & checked if she was ready etc

We get off the metro at a busy area close to where our hotels are & there are loads of lovely bistros etc, all busy so one of the group suggestes we try one that looks v nice & has loads of people dining etc. We go over to take a look at the menu (though if it had been just me & the person who suggested it I'd say we'd have just gone straight in! It was getting late & we'd been slightly concerned we wouldn't even find dinner at that stage. So this place looked perfect.

Anyway Maria is hesitating by the menu & then she pipes up that she's vegan....

She tries asking the waiter if they have anything but he doesn't understand & do we're all standing about dithering & she had NO suggestions of what she'd like to do..we start walking around the square looking at all the menus....its now 10.15pm...I can feel our chances of finding some nice food fading...

She spends AGES reading every menu to reject them all. Eventually she stops in front of a cheap Lebanese place & says 'oh falafel I love them...' so we found ourselves eating a really crap dinner. Essentially it was like a takeaway place with plastic cutlery.

The colleague who suggested the Bistro is perhaps late 60s & has a condition that gives her a tremor & she wanted to sit inside as it was getting chilly outside

Maria the vegan said oh shall we sit outside? It's nicer..more dithering for the group of 4 if us as we don't know each other & everyone was trying to be polite

I was getting to the end of my patience then so went to the bathroom & said I'd find them

Came out...they were outside...poor other colleague was wrapping a scarf around herself. We were surrounded by people smoking those glass pipe things (I forget the name)

The food was v basic. I ordered a vegetarian plate (it looked like that might be the best option ). It consisted of cubed potatoes, rice, a small spoon of veg moussaka & bread - cards on carbs!

I ate it without fuss & also worked hard to keep the small talk inclusive etc . I asked Maria how she normally copes with the vegan diet when travelling & she said she usually gets supermarket food. So from that point of view I was glad she did stay out.

But bloody hell there was a really selfish part of me thar was looking longingly across the square at the lovely bistro & wishing for a lovely glass of red wine & steak et frites...it had been tantalisingly close. I also wanted to chat to the older colleague about a part of work / project we're both involved in but it would have left Maria out of the loop.

And to top it all...I we spent so long faffing about finding vegan food by the time I got back to my hotel the bar had closed so I never even got thar glass of wine!

I REALLY wanted to say to Maria & the 4th colleague who didn't seem at all bothered by any of it - you go for the vegan stuff. Me & other colleague want go in here & eat meat / fish. But somehow that just didn't seem possible.

I woke up today feeling like a horrible person even though i did not let Maria know I was irritated....

I get that but even after you'd all gone ah ok we'll eat here you still didn't speak up and say let's sit inside

I’d have used my phone to translate foods or to ask the staff questions if I didn’t speak the language.

I’d have spoken up.

I’d realise that the fault was mine for not speaking up and wouldn’t have started a thread trying to whip up hate for vegans.

That's just me though, but you did ask.

She was a clueless ass. I'd be irked too.

And, there is no way I would have sat outside in cold weather.

Glad someone else said this!!
Totally agree. I was vegan for years. Even if there's nothing nice on the menu, I always contented myself with a veggie stir fry and glass of wine or cocktail. One of you could have easily spoken up and told her you wanted to go to the bistro.

We were actually inside the falafel place & then the other 2 (not older colleague) started saying oh maybe its nicer outside?
I could feel myself getting cranky & I didn't care too much about being outside so took myself out of the equation by going to the bathroom .
When I came back down I saw they'd moved outside. And older colleague said oh they wanted to come out & was putting her scarf on.

I did my best not to let my irritation show and I don't think I would have felt right in that setting saying right I don't give a crap that you can't find anything to eat I'm going in here anyway...

So it just was what it was but I'll def be giving Mary a wide berth next time when it comes time to find a place for dinner...if there is a next time !

Next time you make plans with your older colleague and set a plan. When Maria the Vegan pipes up that she'd love to join you, then you tell her your plans. If she doesn;t like the menu, too bad, so sad. She goes off and eats her sad takeaway felafel outside with her plastic cutlery, while you enjoy the meal you'd planned.

It’s a really weird thing to get so angry about.
It basically amounts to ‘I had a meal with coworkers who all barely know each other and didn’t get to eat exactly what I wanted’. It’s just a non issue. You can’t please everyone in a group. If it meant that much to you then you had the freedom to go eat somewhere else on your own. But as PP pointed out, wondering around trying to find somewhere to eat with people you don’t know well isn’t going to work that well anyway.

Well you should have just told her 'sorry we have planned to go to the other place' and gone. She wasn't invited in the first place, so you're not 'leaving her out'. Stop being so passive.,

This is a non-issue though. You'll know for next time to express your needs and preferences.

I think you were just way too passive and so was your other colleague. Speak up you’re an adult. Most places do vegan, I’m vegan and travelled around. Chips are vegan!

She was out voted, being vegan is a choice not a dietary requirement, I'd have gone in the first place, it's up to her if she wants to eat or not. No way would I have eaten rubbish at a shitty smokey place because she's awkward. I'd have spoke up and said OK well you go there, in here looks lovely so we'll eat here.

None of it was planned in advance. None of us are from the city or even the country we were in & this dinner group only formed because we realised we were all staying in the same general area of the city so decided to navigate the metro together & then thought we'd get dinner

This is what my vegan friends do when we go somewhere as a group. We obviously try to find a compromise especially if planning in advance but generally the person in the minority tries to be flexible.

@Swishhh If you want to go out with your vegan friend then ask her to find a place that you can both eat at. These days everywhere does at least one vegan meal.

We were actually inside the falafel place & then the other 2 (not older colleague) started saying oh maybe its nicer outside?
I could feel myself getting cranky & I didn't care too much about being outside so took myself out of the equation by going to the bathroom .
When I came back down I saw they'd moved outside. And older colleague said oh they wanted to come out & was putting her scarf on

So 2 out of 4 people were vocal about wanting to sit outside, you didn’t actually care either way so didn’t go against it but you’re annoyed on the older coworkers behalf because you think she didn’t want to sit outside but she didn’t say anything?
She was perfectly capable of saying she didn’t want to sit outside if she felt that strongly.
You can’t really make this out to be such an awful thing to do when 2 people were very happy to do it, and the other two went along with it and didn’t say anything against it.

She wasn’t out voted. They all stayed quiet. 😬

OP I am vegetarian on certain days for religious reasons. On those days I have snacks etc , I would have those if I really cannot find ANYTHING to eat. Restaurants are fine. I'm not sure which country you are in but it's rare that this happens. Usually 'nothing to eat' means 'nothing for a full dinner' or 'nothing I fancy'.

I also have no qualms eating alone. I don't find it sad or isolating. Dietary requirements do require pre-planning. and especially at a work event surely you'd want to enjoy meals that you can expense! I wouldn't want to ruin it for the whole group.

But then again I'm not selfish or clingy, so there's that.

Yes.. I agree.

I think because she's vegan you didn't really have a choice but to accommodate her (although you all should have drawn the line at sitting outside and spoken up about colleague who has a health issue). Veganism is a dietary need so you couldn't really force her to go into somewhere there would be nothing for her to eat (not if you want to be a decent person).

However I totally feel your pain and the situation is annoying. I experienced similar on a group holiday with three friends. One of them is an incredibly fussy eater (not even vegan/veggie or allergies just ridiculously fussy) and literally eats like a child- the only things she can eat are margarita pizza, plain pasta, chips, chicken nuggets, crisps, Chinese takeaway and coke. No exaggeration, that's ALL she will eat or drink!
We went to multiple European countries in two weeks. Every single time in the two weeks that we wanted to eat out for either breakfast lunch or dinner, all four of us had to schelp all over whatever town we were in, with her looking at all the menus and rejecting beautiful looking places because they didn't serve anything of the above. We ended up just eating at places where she could get a pizza and coke which meant bit much variation and a lot of lovely looking places were missed because they didn't do pizza/pasta/chicken nuggets etc.
The other two were fine with accommodating her like this but I was quietly pissed off a lot of the time. What made it worse was that when I said that for breakfast I wanted to go somewhere that served proper breakfast items as I'm really weird about eating 'normal' non-breakfast food as my first meal (like pasta for example) I was told by all three of them that I was outnumbered so if they all wanted pasta for breakfast I would just have to suck it up and have a crossaint before going in.

So, I feel your annoyance (especially about the wine😂) but I think with her being vegan there wasn't much you could do without being a dick. You should have put your foot down about sitting outside though, there was no need for her to control that as well.

So actually 2 people wanted to go outside, but it's all Mary's fault?

Tbh OP I can't stand people like you, who don't speak up but get irritated because everyone else isn't a mind reader. The colleague who fells the cold needed backup, you didn't want to sit outside, but you chose to walk away.

Actually quite a few cooked in animal fat, so they're not really...

I'm veggie and have been for 55 years. To begin with it was impossible to eat out but now everywhere does at least one vegan meal. Even abroad it is possible to eat anywhere. If not, then do what I have done, just eat veg and potato. If the vegan doesn't like it then she can eat elsewhere. As for being so inconsiderate of the other lady, make a point of asking her if she is cold and making a point of sitting inside. Alternatively, tell this woman that you don't want to eat in that cafe and walk over to the other one and let her decide what she wants.

No, not left her alone, but said: I really fancy eating here, we can always split up and meet after again for a drink

thdn someone may have followed you, maybe nobody, may be all of them. Then it would have been Maria’s choice to join you all or eat alone

her choice would not have impacted anyone else that way

I often try to behave like a man would, if in doubt, as men are better at being selfish 😁