Would this be rude?

[Christmas20]

I am going to a family takeaway night tonight with my partner’s family. It’s my first one with them.

They want to order Chinese, which is fine for me because I do eat Chinese food, but I have a couple of issues.

Firstly, I am vegetarian and the place they want to order from doesn’t have a great deal of options for me to choose from. Secondly - and of course I would never voice this to them or make a scene out of it - I have quite bad emetophobia and because of that, I am quite fussy about where I eat from and checking food hygiene ratings etc. The place they want to eat from has a 3 rating and quite a lot of bad reviews about the food being off. I would be panicking the whole time whilst eating and for the next couple of days that the food was going to make me unwell because of this. I am in therapy for this issue but it’s not a quick magical fix.

Would it be rude for me to order my own food (and pay for my own food of course!) from a different place up the road that firstly, has a lot more vegetarian options and secondly, a 5 hygiene rating and excellent 5 star reviews.

I would obviously use the reasoning of there being more options for me to choose from because of being a vegetarian.

😏rude

No. I’m saying social etiquette is weird. Don’t put words into my mouth.

Power dynamics is my term. It’s got nothing to di with my specific family. I’m saying in every social situation there are power dynamics/status dynamics/interpersonal weirdnesses at play and any outsider coming in would do well to be mindful of them. It’s why for example if you are in a stranger’s home you say ‘do you mind if I use the toilet’ and don’t just steam in and do so - you are acknowledging that your status as ‘guest’ means you don’t have the run of the house.

I agree. Families like that sound so horrible. I would hate to have to socialise with people like that. Who cares what someone eats or even if they are a “fussy eater” which Op is not. Live and let live.

If you're picking both up at. Same time-Would they even realise though on a busy night, unless it was pizza of course? !

If they said anything - I'd keep.to the line there was better veggie choice-and keep it very low level /no hassle.

However, I would take your Oh into your confidence.

Does he know re the emetophobia? I'd conceptualise it as being you won't be able to relax and enjoy the evening, if you think there is any chance of (potential) food poisoning - all of this is so usual in folk with emetophobia.

People saying eat the rice/veg/whatever from the Chinese aren't really understanding how all encompassing emetophobia is!

Good luck with the therapy ! @Christmas20

Vegan here, so very used to the lack of options. I usually order a portion of chips. If the hygiene rating is bad and you are worried, do not order any rice. Rice and gravy are the 2 most common sources of food poisoning from takeaways!

But the thing is, your family are the ones being weird here. The core element of social etiquette is not to make others uncomfortable. Even the Queen would misuse her cutlery if she saw a guest using the wrong fork, to make sure they didn't feel embarrassed.

And if the power dynamics in your family are as weird as they are, why would any outside stranger objectively want to submit to them?

You're not wrong that it can make things a difficult. But my friend is a "troublesome SIL" in a family like yours, and if even a tenth of the stuff she tells us about them is true, I don't know why she bothers with the lot of them!

It isn’t that rude.

Yes it would be rude and odd. I'd just eat plain rice and some vegetables. Or if you're really worried just rice. Or you could eat before you go and play with a few morsels on your plate. You'll be fine. It's always dodgy meat that causes food poisoning..

I think this will be my last post because I feel like some of the more antagonistic posters are trying to take the thread in a different direction and just trying to get a kick out of it 🫣

To summarise - after reading everyone’s comments;

I have emetophobia because I was in an extremely abusive relationship (which almost killed me) in my early 20’s. I came down with severe norovirus on his birthday one year and “ruined the day” for him which lead to me being abused and threatened. It made me absolutely petrified of becoming unwell again in fear of getting the same reaction which has then caused issues around food as a result. I am in therapy but the abuse was chronic, unfortunately it’s not that easy for your brain to just switch that off and be normal again.

After reading this thread - in future, I am going to order exactly what I want and from where I want and if any of them have an issue with that, think I’m difficult or a PITA (as some people on this thread have said) then so be it because if that’s the case, maybe I don’t want to socialise with people like that anyway 🤷‍♀️ I shouldn’t have to starve myself, eat beforehand or push chips around a plate to make everyone else feel comfortable and make myself small on purpose to fit in.

As before, thank you for the lovely people on this thread who have been supportive and offered really helpful advice, it’s made me feel a lot more confident about making decisions for myself going forward 💐

Op you shouldn't have to explain yourself.

I think this thread is split about 60/40 between people who think your plan is absolutely fine - and we and our wider family would want a guest to feel comfortable.
The others think it was rude and either would judge, or would fear being judged and would resort to extreme people pleasing ( and some really quite strange solutions) for something that they are imagining a host would have a problem with, but they can't know that.

Personally, I would think someone who ordered a few bean sprouts and pushed them around their plate, or said they had eaten earlier and didn't join in with the meal that had been a few days in the planning was odd a little quirky.

As a host I would also be concerned for someone's comfort if they feigned being ill, so would rather it was genuine. I would be concerned about their food and everyone feasting in front of them if they weren't eating and would be racking my brain for an alternative from the kitchen. So some of the approaches that have been suggested here would be far more stressful to me as a host than someone simply ordering what they want.

All the more reason to take no notice of “social etiquette” (which this isn’t) then

You don’t have to explain yourself. It doesn’t matter what your reasoning is (and I’m sorry to hear what you went through). Even if you wanted to order something different for no reason at all other than fancying different food, THAT IS FINE! You absolutely should think about your needs and comfort first, in most if not all situations. And as you said, anyone who doesn’t like that isn’t worth your time.

Just eat before you go and have a couple of spoonfuls of rice, no one’ll notice!

Could you elaborate on why you think it’s rude?

Sounds like a good plan OP. Good for you for making this decision. I'm sorry for what you have gone through. I hope you have a lovely evening.

I think it would be rude to think this was rude so it’s all subjective.

To be honest I had no idea about the back story to this. The OP has a really serious reason for her decision which I didn't know about. I don't think OP is rude and take that back in the circumstances. If there's a really serious reason why someone can't join a family with their eating then that's fair enough. As someone who was brought up to eat food they don't like much and who has a lot of picky people in my family that demand special catering (more work for me) I was probably projecting that. I didn't realise what the OP had been through and I think she's made a great decision.

Well done! The posters on here telling you it’s rude and to do this, that and the other to make others comfortable at your expense are just projecting their own strange attitudes towards people’s differing food needs.

The host’s job is to make their guest comfortable, not the other way round. As long as everyone is being civilised and polite then different eating preferences are a non-event. I would not dream of making a guest uncomfortable because their eating preferences differed from mine.

Sure. You can hang out with only people you feel comfortable with — but if you are ever in a situation like meeting a partner's family, where you try to control everything because they can't centre your own trauma, you might find yourself disliked. Fair enough if you don't care. OP clearly does (as an aside, I think OP should have worked through her issues before getting into another serious romantic relationship, because this extreme trauma is going to cause issues in the new relationship - it already is because she can't just normally engage with a family takeaway — and I say this as someone who has been in a very abusive relationship and seen the impact on new partners. It's not fair to bring unresolved issues into a new partnership).

Fair enough if you don’t care

I don’t care.

I think this hits the nail on the head. We've all been discussing the rights and wrongs of the takeaway options as though that was the pressing issue here. It's emerged (through drip feeding) that the OP has a significant unresolved trauma that needs to be addressed outside MN.

In the end, OP didn't even attend the family meal.

This is no longer a post about family dynamics, vegetarianism, stomach sensitivities, or phobias. It's about unresolved abuse, so very few of the previous comments are actually valid or appropriate in this newly enlightened context.

Surely the controlling people are those who would think someone else is rude if they don't eat the exact takeaway they demand and would rather that person go hungry or push around rice on a plate to please them instead?

I don’t have food issues but I wouldn’t want to order off a 3* takeaway. My two local Chinese takeaways both rate 5.

It’s completely ridiculous, and also if she wants to be a long-term partner and a member of their family, surely they should get to know the fact that she’s vegetarian and and has a phobia of vomit. If they’re nice people, they really won’t care.