Starting to eat before everyone is at the table is rude!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

If you remove the “I paid for this food” factor, and just leave it at “I made this food”, the response you’re describing here fits the stereotypical Jewish/Italian mother to a T. “Eat! Eat!” she implores. “Why won’t you eat? I cooked this just for you!” She hovers, distraught. So you eat, to please her. And yep, this leads not just to eating disorders in later life, but to a whole host of neuroses and issues, not necessily food-related, rooted in the fact that in order to please your mother, you must eat (read: accept) what she has passively-aggressively forced upon you. It’s a control issue.

Don’t wanna turn this into a flaming, bitchy “get help!” thread, but seriously, dude, hear some totally unbiassed opinion: you’ve got some issues going on here. If this girl is The One, I’d strongly suggest the two of you get some kind of premarital counseling before you tie the knot, because as it stands, IMO you’re a divorce statistic waiting to happen. Your need for control will branch out into other areas of her life, and your nascent feelings of martyrdom will, too, and before you know it, she’ll be packing her bags with quiet determination, saying, “I just can’t live with you anymore…” And you’ll be standing there, baffled, begging her to explain why.

Stereotypical Jewish/Italian controlling mothers can’t understand why their children need to move out, either, or why they never call, they never write…

Why should your feelings be hurt when she doesn’t eat your dinner? It’s just food. You’re a team; one team member fixed food for the team. If it doesn’t get eaten with a lot of Ooohs and Aaahs over it, you don’t have the right to be personally offended, because cooking a meal is not an opportunity for personal validation–it’s just food. Somebody has to go out and slay the mammoth for dinner; so when you bring home the big chunks of meat over your shoulder, she’s out gathering nuts and berries, and isn’t there to Oooh and Aaaah over your cavemanly providing, so big whoop. Just because your Dad demanded lots of approval and validation from his family for bringing home the mammoth doesn’t mean that you need to, too, especially because this girl is just your live-in. She’s not your wife, she’s got no personal stake in you, so she doesn’t have to pump up your ego every night at supper in order to keep you slaving away at McJob so her children can be fed.

My husband carried mail so I could be a SAHM. We never felt a need to pump up his ego every night at dinner. We all knew he was a good provider, and he was content to know that we knew. He didn’t feel a need to bang us over the head with it every night. Guys who do that are guys who aren’t very secure in what they do, so they need to have external validation.

So there’s other stuff going on here besides just “she won’t eat her supper!”. Try not sulking when your GF doesn’t eat her dinner (oh, and here’s a hint-- “Freezer”. Stick her uneaten dinner in a tupperware or a baggie and shove it in the freezer, it’ll be fine, and do it without an air of martyrdom, me boyo, simply with an air of cheerful matter-of-fact practicality, “don’t want to see this go to waste”), and see if other aspects of your relationship don’t perk up. Try it for a month.

42

Wow, my SO would drive you up the wall… I came from one of those sit-down dinner families too and I never had much to say for it. My dad’s a bit of a bastard and the percentage chances of someone saying the wrong thing during dinner, pissing him off and getting either yelled at, sent from the table or smacked upside the head were usually pretty good–with three kids it was pretty certain there’d be a scene at least once a week. Consequently, I’ve never been big on the family dinner scene, to the point where I don’t even HAVE a dining room table any more–it’s a computer desk…

The SO does the majority of the cooking, but regardless of who cooks he always waits a while to eat. Me, I’m always hungry when it’s ready and I detest letting my food get cold so I’ll dish up and start in but he’ll wait a bit… feed the dogs… wander around… he just doesn’t like to eat until stuff has cooled off. Generally he sits down on the couch next to me just as I’m polishing off my dinner. I’ve taken to splitting my meal into two parts, about 2/3 of the dinner I eat as soon as it’s ready, then I go back for the rest after he sits down, so we are actually eating somewhat together. It used to bug me a bit, but hell–it’s his dinner too, and he should be able to enjoy eating the way he prefers regardless of my prejudices. If it’s important to me that we eat at the same time, then it’s up to me to arrange it that way by inconveniencing MYSELF, not him.

'Cuz nobody loves a control freak. Not for long, anyway…

43

Please keep in mind that this isn’t the Pit. Calling the OP “insane”, “pussy” or any other insulting term is not allowed.

44

You’re out of line to be offended. It means something to you, but it doesn’t mean something to her. It’s arbitrary and based on upbringing and other social factors. Whatever, you both came out the way you did.

The way forward to is to acknowledge the difference and agree to a common ground with the understanding that you both have different feelings on the topic. If there was no such common-ground understanding in place already, you have no right to be pissed off at her.

45

Come on how can you expect someone to pick up hot takie outtie and then wait until you get home before diving into the bread stix?

i thought this was gonna be about an in the kitchen co-op cooking occassion, where afterwards, one hightails it with their hot plate to the den and starts chowing before you get there. That would be rude.

I have not so fond memories of eating with the inlaws, where its a mad grab for a plate and food before the head honcho was ready for “prayer”. So as I was always last, after the herd, the entire table of inlaws would glare at me for making them late for prayer and chow. God Forbid you keep the alpha males waiting in that clan! Oh and then the acid inducing table conversation and then the mad rush for the dishes by the betties. So sad what’s the point?

My family otoh could sit for hours at the table, eating, drinking, smoking, yakking all night!

46

I am one of the most avid and strict practitioners of formal dining manners that you are likely to come across on this board, or in real life, for that matter (in my house there is NO WAY you’d be watching TV while you had dinner, for example).

So if I say the breadsticks aren’t that big a deal, that’s saying A LOT.

I do wonder if some people are picturing the breadsticks as those dry, crunchy sticks you get at Italian restaurants (the breadsticks of my youth), or if your breadsticks were the new-fangled kind – hot, fluffy, and meant to be more of a side dish for your pizza … yes, it ends up being bread with a side of … bread, but that is an issue for another thread.

If they are the dry, crunchy sticks … then we’re talking non-issue. That is a nibble, a mere nosh before dinner. If one is making dinner at home, one might realistically sample that much food during the preparation process.

Even if the sticks are the fluffy kind, it still feels like more of a snack before the main meal. You mentioned your girlfriend doesn’t always eat a lot – if she is one of those eaters who takes several small meals during the day, if it has been a while since she last ate she could be seriously hungry … hungry to the point of physical discomfort, in which case she should eat something, whether or not you are home.

Had she filled up on the breadsticks to the point that she didn’t want to eat anything else (unfortunate but sometimes happens in life), I agree that if you planned to “eat dinner together,” as a social activity, then you should still expect the two of you to sit at the table and chat about your day, with you eating pizza and her … not eating but maybe noshing or drinking some wine. I would be a little miffed (if I were you) if she announced she was going to … drive to the mall or check her email or whatever instead of sitting down with you while you ate.

47

An example - today I had lunch with Himself at a burrito place. They have a salsa bar and chips, although the chips are not complimentary. (If that matters.) I got there first and he was super-late because mirabile dictu, I cleaned the bathroom, and he says I set him up a shaving Easter egg hunt. Anyway, I ordered for him. I didn’t eat my quesadilla until he got there (although I would have if it was necessary to get me back to work on time - I would have texted him to let him know, though.) I did, however, eat the chips and salsa. Count me with delphica for table manner stringency, but there’s nothing wrong with eating stuff like that without somebody else.

48

Yeah, for a formal dinner, the rule is to wait until everyone is served. And, even then, when there are a lot of people to be served, the host may (and probably should) tell the guests to go ahead and eat right away, and the guests are perfectly correct to do so.

But take-out pizza? Nah.

49

Did you give her the knuckles? Mrs. G did this. Once.

(just kidding – unbunch panties)

50

Starting to eat while everyone is at the table but has not yet been served is rude. Starting to eat because not everyone is there is not rude, unless you invited other people or something (and they’re not late).

51

If you love your girlfriend, learn to pick your battles. They’re BREADSTICKS.

52

I completely agree with ya. Another thing that really bugs me is when you’re in a restaurant and the waitress starts to clear the table before everyone has stopped eating. This only happened once but what made it worse was the fact that she leaned over me to grab my sisters plate - NOT impressed!

53

[hijack]

Allow me to say, “Good lord”. You moved his stuff, and so he couldn’t shave? Egad. Whadja do, hide it in the hall closet downstairs, cackling evilly? Or have you got one of those Nashville Country Star mansions with the 400-square-foot bathrooms and once something gets lost in there, it stays lost?

Quit that damn cleanin’, wummun! I cain’t find nuthin’!

:smiley:

[/hijack]

54

Would it have been wrong if she had cooked dinner and decided to eat a couple of dinner rolls while waiting for the sphagetti to boil?

Or let’s say she was making breakfast and while waiting for the last waffle to come out of the iron, she decided to nibble on a piece of bacon.

If you don’t find these situations the height of rudeness, then I recommend giving your girlfriend a break. Forget that you gave her the money. By picking up the pizza, she was in essence serving you. And as the server, she sets the tone for what’s appropriate or not.

I agree, in general, that it’s better to wait for everyone before eating. When I go out to eat with someone and my dish comes before theirs, I always wait. Of if they jet to the bathroom when our food arrives, I’ll wait till they come back. But I also understand that not everyone was raised like this. In fact, I wasn’t even raised like this. I picked up this particular habit in graduate school, when I noticed other people doing this. They weren’t better raised than me. Just differently raised.

You owe your girlfriend a big apology.

55

Damn straight. However, I don’t recall synchronised-to-the-second ingestion of identically sized portions being mentioned as being a universal feature of human social rituals. The key part you are ‘sharing’ is around time, conversation, etc.
There are plently of places around the world where the norm is for the food disappears as soon as it hits the table - if that means some people are finished before the others have even started, that’s fine, it leaves more time for talking. And the food didn’t get cold either.

56

If they jet to the bathroom when the food arrives, I’m grabbing everything I can from the shared dishes before they get back!

Unfortunately, I’ve known too many people who don’t wash up after using the restroom. :eek:

Then I’m going to eat anyway, because we waited all this time for the food to come and NOW you feel the need to run off? In an “everyone waits” scenario, that’s damned rude.

57

These are my thoughts, too. Initially, I thought that it was incredibly rude. If my husband and I are both at home, neither of us will ever eat without the other if the two of us are having dinner together. So one of us will wait for the other to come to the table and finish incidentals like getting drinks and/or strapping the kid into his booster seat before tearing into a meal.

However, given that you apparently weren’t going to be home for a while (did she know how long you would be?) and it sounds like she was pretty hungry, it makes sense for her to have a nibble on the “side dish” of whatever it was that you were planning to eat together. As mentioned above, it’s not like she dug into the main event - she just had a snack to tide her over. Plus, have you ever tried to NOT eat a pizza when you’re starving? It’s next to impossible - the deliciousness of the smell alone could drive you to madness!

58

Pretty much what delphica said.

One of the things I am happiest about as a parent is the emphasis we put on shared mealtimes. We have a whole bunch of “rules.” But if someone is feeling peckish and noshes on something before everything is on the table and everyone is seated, that doesn’t even merit notice.

59

Thank you for posting this - I couldn’t figure out what the heck she was talking about!!

Re the OP: Not rude to eat the breadsticks, unless she didn’t eat the pizza, too, since y’all had a planned a “special” meal together.

I feel like I’ve been reprimanded, though.

I get mad at my husband if he’s not hungry at dinnertime because he snacked. I try real hard to have dinner ready every day around the same time, so he should know not to eat too much junk. I get disappointed if he doesn’t want to eat when it’s ready, because it takes effort to make food and it feels like he’s dissin’ me.

So I shouldn’t care that he doesn’t respect the effort I’ve put into the meal? maybe I’m a Jewish/Italian mama… :slight_smile:

(FWIW, I work full time, too.)

60

I do, a little bit, too. If what I’m making is taking a while, I’ll tell him. His blood sugar may act up on him and he could get a headache if he doesn’t have a snack. But if he’s just munching away and dinner’s going to be ready in five minutes, that’s just telling me what I’m making isn’t worth waiting for.