To think you should eat outside in summer

[Sneezeseverytimeheeatsabounty]

We live abroad and are on holidays this month.
Dh tends to do a bbq most days for lunch.
Each time he wants to eat inside as thinks there’s too many flies outside (there aren’t) or some other excuse. Dd follows him and they end up sat indoors eating lunch watching tv on a lovely summers day.
I end up sat outside eating lunch on my own
We have a nice seating area by the garden and pool with large parasol for shade
We have all autumn/winter where we’ll have to be sat inside eating

Aibu to want to sit and eat lunch outside as a family on our summer holidays?

Each to their own. It never fails to astound me how one person expects another to want to do the same thing as they do? Especially in informal situations.

Oh wow I had no idea so many people hate eating outside.

I enjoy eating outside in the park or if the weather is nice, not hot, and in some shade but not so much at cafes and restaurants where smoking is allowed which is an issue in the local town centre, the smell alone puts me off. Part of eating is being able to smell my food.

To answer these:

• I’ve had a couple of picnics and can’t say I enjoy sitting in the floor eating outside. Tried one once when my kids were little and they ran away screaming from a wasp or something and never tried again. Plus it’s just easier to eat at home inside where all the knives, plates etc are.
• Terrace… maybe would be ok. A proper table, if it was well set up. I’d choose to eat inside if possible though, especially when abroad as I’d want the air con,
• I probably wouldn’t do the strawberry thing. I need to wash my hands before I eat and wouldn’t want to eat food with my hands when out and about and when I couldn’t wash stickiness off afterwards.
• I don’t think I’ve ever sat on my doorstep, never mind drank a beer at my front door. This one definitely doesn’t appeal to me.

To add more shame to it all, I live in The Lake District.

Just enjoy your holiday....life is too short... just relax....

100% this!

We live in SW France. This week is the first time since probably May that we've eaten inside (because it's gone suddenly cooler). We have a fan over our dining table on our covered terrace and rotating fly fans at table height. We haven't cooked inside for months (our BBQ also has a hob so we can cook pasta etc.). Al fresco dining is something we spend all winter looking forward to and if we go to a restaurant in the summer we always sit outside (although always in the shade).

Night markets outside under the shade of the trees in the square, their leaves lit by coloured strings of lights, are a magical thing.

But then once I visited a friend with a holiday home on a lovely September evening and was really disappointed that we sat inside all evening with the telly burbling on in the background. "Oh, I thought we'd be outside" I said. "Oh no, we never eat outside because of the insects".

So although there's no "should" about it, my preference is always for dining Al fresco. I think it's odd that people don't like it, but each to their own.

I agree, missing out on so much life

Exactly! I enjoy the seasons for their differences. While we can we eat differently , dress differently and use our garden .i also can’t visit a cinema on a sunny and warm day.

They don’t. You only have to look at restaurants and cafes with outside spaces in the summer. Indoor: empty, outside
: packed.

I only enjoy eating outside if in shade. If there’s no shade and flies/wasps I couldn’t stay outside.

I don't like eating outside, insects buzzing around my food, sun shining in my eyes, potential for swooping birds, maybe even a bird pooping close to where I am eating. YABU.

If someone doesn't enjoy it, they aren't missing out.

I always come away from BBQ's, picnics etc feeling disappointed and annoyed by flies/wasps and on some occasions, badly behaved dogs.

Exactly. Except I think youre wasting your time, OP appears to have only come for validation that one should indeed eat outside, otherwise they're missing out on the true meaning of life.

Not unreasonable to want to eat your lunch outside, but unreasonable to think that they have to do it as well if they don't enjoy it.

Maybe he is posting on Dadsnet saying “my wife is so uptight and forcing me to sit outside to eat in the heat, where frankly I’m not as comfortable. Is she controlling?”

People have preferences. Leave him to it.

One person wants to eat outside one person wants to eat inside why does the person who wants to eat outside win?

neither is being unreasonable excpet for the part 'well I have decided it has to be this way and people around me who dont agree are wrong'

This! The last couple of times we’ve attempted to eat outside we’ve had five or six wasps descend on the table. We gave up and took our meal inside.

We have exactly the same issue. I fought fly fans and insect spray. We compromise ans eat inside at lunchtime and outside in the evening

I don't like having food outdoors at all so for me I eat inside, I don't think he's unreasonable for it to be honest and neither are you for wanting to sit outside it's just you seem to have different views which is fine, you can eat outside if you like but don't expect other people to want to, not everyone likes having food outside

Take it in turns? You get mon, wed, Fri all eat outside, he gets Tue Thur sat all eat inside, kids chooses Sunday

I don’t mind sitting outside with a drink but I really prefer sitting inside to eat unless a very warm evening. I hate the insects, the squinting in the sun, the wind blowing things about. I like the outdoors - I’ll walk outside, play, swim, sit about, etc. I go for long hikes and sit on the grass with a drink and some fruit cake. I’ll have my coffee outdoors in the mornings, but I don’t want to sit out in the middle of the day and eat a proper meal.

I live sitting outside to eat. My parents used to live in Spain over winter so tended to eat inside, but once we arrived at Easter I ‘made’ them sit outside and it was lovely. Yes a few glues but we put stuff out for them and the wadis and last time the mossies weren’t bad at all - we used those wrist and ankle bands which seemed to work well. I agree it’s one of the best parts of the holiday! Plus we had no TV so that’s not even an option - scrabble every night!

I can guarantee you 'miss out on life' more than me. You come across with pursed-lipped judgement about other people's choices. Which doesn't scream 'fun' to me.

I think there should be some compromise. He likes inside, you like outside so you should do a bit of both. IMO eating together as a family a reasonable proportion of the time is important if you can, so you need to work out a compromise.

And yes, I like eating outside and would feel sad if I had a lovely spot to eat but ended up wasting it. And I wouldn't want to be using it all on my own when it's supposed to be a family dinner.