My evil half-brother and his family always do that on holidays. My dad was furious this past Thanksgiving because I’d busted my ass doing the whole thing and they just picked at it. I was just sick about it too. Also, it turned out that I’d ordered a whole turkey because we were hoping to have extra people who couldn’t come, and then the turkeys turned out big, so I had a seventeen pound turkey and it went nowhere. He’s so passive aggressive about it, too - the kids always out him.
Oh, and they were an hour late, too. My mom was practically in tears. I said “fuck 'em, you know they ate already, sit down and be at the table when they get here.” Nobody listened to me, though.
ETA - MLS, that’s not a “snide little way”, that’s out and out warfare. She brought her own dinner? I hope you spat in it when she wasn’t looking.
I totally agree. In almost all cultures you welcome guests with “come in, sit down, eat.” You refusing their offered food would be an insult, and the MIL in question indubitably knew that refusing your food was insulting. She sounds like she was a real piece of work.
She was. I hated her. After we had kids I had to force myself to teach them to be respectful of her and to not show that I thought she was a real bitch. She had a passive-aggressive way about her that made her nastiness not obvious. Of course after we had kids and she wanted to be the doting grandma, stuff changed. And her second husband apparently liked me, so they would take to fawning over me. But that’s enough hijacking. She’s gone now. I do not normally dwell on her and on things that happened 30 years ago.
In India, a “lot” of people have fast days. I understand it’s not at all uncommon for a guest to come to dinner and announce it’s a fast day for them. And it’s not at all uncommon for everyone to enjoy the meal, including the faster in a virtual way.
I am a vegetarian, and I would never go to a friend’s house for dinner and not eat. I may be limited to bread and salad, but I will eat.
Not to would be just plain rude. If you’re not going to eat, turn down the invite with a plausible excuse (Oh, I am so sorry. I have an early morning the next day and I don’t want to be too tired.)
I think it is somewhat rude–I’d never do that unless I was stone broke, and the eating part of the evening was a surprise–but there is another side to that which I think is also rude–the social pressure to order desert so that someone else can. I don’t eat sweets, not because I don’t like them but because I like them entirely too much and eating tons of sugar makes me feel weird. I really don’t like sharing all that with people unless I know them very well. Because deserts these days are always so huge, sometimes when you go out with people they want to order a desert to share, or they want you to order desert so that they can as well. In that case, my standard line is “No, thanks, but I’d love to order a cup of coffee and sit here and talk”, so that I too am getting a second “course” (and I almost always want a cup of coffee), but for some people that’s not enough–it’s clear they really want desert but feel like they can’t if you don’t and so they really really want you to order. It’s awkward.
I agree with you on the desserts, Manda. I usually won’t order one if no one else is having one (I don’t want to look like the only sugar pig in the group). I don’t think I pressure anyone else into having one - if no one else wants to order a dessert, I’ll just stop at Safeway on the way home if I’m really jonesing for chocolate cake (and get a better dessert for a quarter of the price, anyway. ).
If you’re invited to someone’s home for a meal, and that’s the clear understanding, then of course it’s stupid and inconsiderate to eat first, and even more so to turn up with the evidence.
Meeting up in a public place isn’t the same. Sometimes people want to turn up for the social interaction, not for the food. People have different schedules, needs, tastes and preferences. It may suit you to eat here and eat now, but not everyone is the same. You are free to eat, they are free not to eat, and that’s all there is to it. They are not there ‘watching you eat’. They are providing company and enjoying company, chatting, catching up, sharing time… there can be lots of good reasons to get together, and if some of you want food and others’s don’t, it’s okay.
).