To the OP I don’t thing it is rude that they did not eat with you but I do think it is rude for them to mention that they alreay ate. They easily could have just said they’re just not that hungry which is the truth because they just ate. I’ve gone to eat with friends and there have been times when I am just not hungry or someone else is not hungry and so someone just sits there blabbing away about what ever and it’s never been a problem.
Now I have done the eating beforehand thing. I’ve never done it before a restuarant because I so rarely go out to eat that when I do I want to eat the good food at the restuarant.
Just this last week my step-dad mentioned off hand that he was going to cook up some lamb because my step-brother had never had it and he wanted to try it because he was thinking of making some for his girl-friend in the near future but he wanted to try it first and do a test run with my step-dads help. I said that I had never had lamb before either so he invited me over to eat sometime in the afternoon last Sunday.
Well by noon I was hungry again and I knew we wouldn’t be eating until about 3PM so I had some yogurt and a bowl of cereal. It was enough to satisy me for the time being but not enough to fill me up so that I wouldn’t be hungry for the lamb. The lamb was very good by the way.
But I would never dream of picking up something on the way to someones house and plan on eating it at their house. If I was absolutely starving and I had to have something right now I would stop and grab a burger but I would it in the burger joint and I would never tell the people I had eaten a burger on the way.
Wow that turned out to be way longer than I thought it was going to be.
My inlaws used to pull that crap all the time. The food part, not the weed part. I would invite them over for a specific meal at a specific time. They would show up an hour late, while I’d been trying to keep the food appetizing instead of all dried out or soggy. Then they’d say “Oh, we stopped and got a Whopper on the way.” Or they’d bring their own food. Not an addition to the meal, actual meat and potatoes. Literally. After a while we stopped waiting and ate when the food was ready.
To me, there is a difference. Sharing a meal with someone - not just sitting at the same table, but actually breaking bread, so to speak - is a form of human interaction. I don’t know why it is: ancient cultural mores? An expression of shared humanity? Of vunerability? Proof the the food isn’t poisoned?* Whatever it is, it has significant social weght, and I can take refusal to particpate as an insult, if an inadvertant one.
We call that “pre-eating” which I’m big on but my husband is not. If we’re doing something where the eating hour is like 3 or 4 pm, and we didn’t eat breakfast and know we’re going to be starving by that time, I “pre-eat” by making 1/2 a sandwich or a fruit cup or a bowl of cheerios or something. That way, I know I’ll still be mealworthy when the food is served.
I will probably have to pre-eat tomorrow. We’re going to a bbq and since we’re not due til 3, we prolly won’t eat til 5 or 6. They’ll have appetizers, but I’ll have to eat something by late morning or I’ll get a little mental.
I’ve occasionally spent time at restaurants with friends after having eaten elsewhere. On some occasions I needed to eat earlier, but I’ll at least get dessert or a drink. On some occasions I may have had another social engagement just prior or after, which also included food. And on a few occasions, I just couldn’t afford a restaurant meal at the time. In any case, I always tried to be upfront about my reasons.
The examples that MLS and Dio give are examples of either social cluelessness or downright hostility. That’s just unacceptable behavior.
I don’t even think that that deserves a special name, personally. I just call it the prior meal. Pre-eating before a lunch date is something I usually call “breakfast.” If I need something in between two far-spaced meals but not a meal in itself, I call it a snack.
Meh. When the point of getting together is to spend time with friends, who cares if they don’t want to eat while you’re eating? I think it’s even ruder to not keep someone company, just because you already ate. They’re not social pariahs because they have food in their mouths!
However. If the invitation is of the “I’ll cook dinner for you” kind, then it is rude to refuse to eat, or to have eaten beforehand. In a situation where everyone is choosing what they will eat, choosing “nothing, thanks” is fine. If everyone is having the same thing, opting out is not an option (barring dietary restrictions, which probably should have been communicated beforehand, anyway).
I agree with this. It’s fine to order something small, but not eating at all is usually rude.
If someone is asked to go out to eat and for whatever reason (dietary restrictions, timing, money) knows that they won’t be able to order a meal, then the onus is on them to inform their dining companions beforehand. Then their friends can either say “come along anyway” or “okay, let’s do something else.”
It’s not the worst thing someone can do, but yes, it is rude.
Fortunately, my husband had no problem giving his mother grief for doing that. “She’s been working all afternoon making dinner for you, and you stopped at McDonald’s!?!?” Of course, that was in Ukrainian but I knew what he was saying. They never really got out of the habit, but I learned to cope. First, I’d tell them the meal would be ready at 3:00 if I wanted to serve at 5:00. Second, if the food was ready and they weren’t there, the rest of us sat down and ate it. Third (and this is the best part), they’re dead now.
Pre-eating puts me in mind of Mammy trying to get Scarlet in “Gone With the Wind” to eat lots before the big feast/party so she wouldn’t humiliate everyone by eating in an unladylike fashion (i.e., like a normal person).
Another issue that complicates matters is the eating disorder thing…if you guys knew someone had an ED, would that excuse it?
What about if they weren’t all that hungry but made the effort anyway–like ordered a small salad and ate some for show?
I mostly skimmed the thread so I hope I didn’t miss something important, but do you guys get separate checks or just divvy up the tab?
The reason I ask is because I used to have this one friend who was quite the little social organizer and would arrange this big lunches or dinners for all us friends. He’d order whatever he wanted to eat & drink. Some of us would be a bit more conservative about how much we were spending. When it came time to pay he’d announce he had no cash so would everyone just give him the cash for the whole meal equally divided and oh, yeah please include a nice tip, too. He’d put it all on his credit card.
It became pretty obvious he was making out on the deal not to mention some of that tip money.
After being burned a few times like that I can see stopping by to say hi and hang out a bit but saying “sorry, already ate (not splitting the bill with you and paying for most of your meal).”
I’m sure we can come up with about a zillion scenarios that are exceptions to the general rule that it is rude to agree to participate in an activity with someone and then show up and not participate.
But this particular case falls is covered by what I said before:
They were UKRAINIAN and they did that to you? As far as I know, that means they were totally disrespecting you. Eating your host’s food in Slavic countries is a big deal (heck, in most countries).
I’m going to have to cast my vote for friends who are invited to a meal but eat first and don’t eat with you as slightly disrespectful, but not enough to make a big deal of. I wouldn’t like it, either - when someone is invited for a meal with you, there is a reasonable expectation that they will have a meal with you, not watch you eat. I pre-eat all the time for health reasons, but I can guarantee you that none of my friends or family know about it.
Knowing that guy, you’re probably right. In fairness, he wasn’t really intentionally being a dick. It was just pothead cluelessness and poor impulse control.
Well, the obvious interpretation was that since I am not of their ethnicity, the food I cooked was unfit to eat and they had to bring their own. My husband definitely saw it as disrespect to me also. My MIL had her own snide little ways of being disrespectful that fell just short of kicking me in the ass.
As far as the timing, the entire bunch, including my husband, has no sense of time. In his case, he has other redeeming qualities, so we have learned to adapt to one another.
