[QUOTE=pbbth]
If you made me dinner and specifically made seafood knowing I don’t like it and won’t eat it simply because you feel I need to have the “experience” of eating something different I would have broken up with you right there. If you can’t make at least 1 thing you know she likes when you are purposely preparing food for the both of you that makes you rude as well, not just her.
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Well, we’re not exactly talking about him going out of his way to make the one type of food she doesn’t like, are we? We’re talking about him not going out of his way to limit himself to the handful of things she won’t either refuse outright, or pick to pieces and grouse about. There is, quite frankly, a world of difference.
How much you can expect people to accommodate you really depends a lot on what your expectations are. Avoiding one type of food isn’t really that much of an imposition, so it’s perfectly reasonable for, say, a vegetarian or someone who hates seafood or Mexican to expect someone to fix something they can and will eat on a regular basis. Avoiding pretty much everything except four or five dishes is a) a first-class PITA to plan things around, especially if the other person is trying to eat healthier than your chosen diet and b) really effin’ boring to the other person, so it’s really not reasonable to expect very much accommodation. I gotta give the man a pass on the rudeness charge, here.
To the OP: Stop trying to fix your girlfriend. You cannot fix people. They are not broken. They simply are who they are, and you have to accept them as they are, or not at all.
That being said, I can see both sides of this particular issue. On the one hand, I’ve been the one whose taste in food, or music, or people wasn’t up to snuff, and that is absolutely no fun at all. And it does sound like she’s making at least some effort.
On the other hand, I try not to be a big nuisance about my preferences and limitations. I’m not going to sit there and pick apart my dinner, for instance. (Well, I will pick out mushrooms. But I just move them a bit to the side of my plate as I eat, not pile them up on my lap or the table or whatever, and I don’t make a big production of it.) I’ll either load it up with condiments to make it edible, or eat the other dishes, or nibble and get something else later, whatever seems least likely to make waves.
And we’ve got a friend who is not so food-limited as your gf, but she’s awful damn limited. It’s a royal nuisance, dealing with her absolute refusal to try anything new, especially if you want to eat out and are trying to pick a restaurant. Eating at the same five places over and over and over and over gets old pretty fast, so I can only imagine what it’s like to be eating the same five dishes.
If you’re determined to try and stick this out, you can always try what we’ve finally done with our friend. If we’re eating out, we pick a restaurant and then call and invite her along. She almost certainly won’t come unless we’ve picked one of her handful of acceptable options, but we at least made the attempt to include her. If we’re having people over for dinner, we make what we think most people will like. If it’s not something she’s willing to eat, she knows where the stuff for making a sandwich is.
