The waiter who quietly boxed it up without a word

Started 18 December 2024 · 24 replies · 275 hearts · read 4.6k times

OsgarKillarney, IE · 18 December 2024

1.6 years ago

The waiter who quietly boxed it up without a word Writing it down partly to work out what I actually think.

Anyone else navigating this? I feel as though every piece of advice I read was written for someone with a completely different week.

Practical question, and possibly a silly one, but the logistics of this are defeating me considerably more than the medicine is.

I have tried three arrangements and none of them has survived a difficult week, which suggests I am designing for good weeks.

If anybody has an arrangement that works and is willing to write it out, I would be very grateful.

DelphiThessaloniki, GR

What helped was having one sentence ready. Mine is that I am not very hungry today, and nobody has ever pursued it.

PerryCardigan, UK

Osgar, answering your question directly rather than going round the houses.

I found weddings hardest of all. A set menu, a long evening, and eleven people at a table who all know each other.

NoorFacilitatorSingapore

Thank you for asking the practical question. This circle is at its best on exactly this and the answers are already better than any guide I could write.

26me too 9

GwilymCaernarfon, UK

This is the post I wish had existed when I was looking for it.

NolCork, IE

Coming back to what Perry wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

Something I got right was continuing to go out. I nearly stopped for six months and I am glad I did not.

NkosiJohannesburg, ZA

What I would say is that leaving food is allowed. I had a lifetime of not being allowed to and unlearning it took a year.

WystanCheltenham, UK

My honest experience is that most people are far less interested in what I am eating than I imagined for the first year.

OttiHarrogate, UK

The commentary from one particular relative was relentless and I eventually said, once, that I would rather not discuss it, and that was that.

10me too 4

Bell ANorwich, UK

Marking that I am here, in case that counts for anything today.

9me too 3

GildaTrieste, IT

#10

Something that helped was going out at lunchtime instead of the evening, because my appetite is much more reliable earlier in the day.

AmbroseYork, UK

#11

What surprised me was how many restaurants happily did a smaller portion when asked quietly. I had assumed it would be a problem.

TavitaApia, WS

#12

Same here, and I am glad you said it first.

WinkleWeymouth, UK

#13

Tavita, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

I found the anticipation harder than the event, every time, which is a pattern I now recognise across most of this.

OsgarKillarney, IE

#14

My rule is that I go for the company. If I eat, good; if I do not, that is also fine, and reframing it that way fixed most of my anxiety.

9me too 6

DelphiThessaloniki, GR

#15

What Winkle described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

Something practical: I sit near the end of the table if I can, because it is much easier to be less observed there.

PerryCardigan, UK

#16

I had one genuinely bad evening early on where I felt unwell at the table, and having a plan for that now means I am not braced for it.

KateBelfast, NI

#17

My partner orders something we can share when he senses it is a difficult evening, without ever making it a thing, and it is quietly brilliant.

8me too 1

GwilymCaernarfon, UK

#18

Gently disagreeing with Kate, or rather adding the other half of it.

The wine question comes up in this circle a lot and mine changed considerably, and having something else in the glass removed the discussion.

NolCork, IE

#19

This is the honest version, and the honest version is harder to write.

10me too 4

NkosiJohannesburg, ZA

#20

Kate said something I want to sit with for a second.

I ask for a box now without any embarrassment, which is a small thing that changed the whole experience of eating out.

WystanCheltenham, UK

#21

What I would say to somebody dreading a big meal is that it will almost certainly be less noticed than you fear.

OttiHarrogate, UK

#22

The business dinner was the last thing I got comfortable with, and what solved it was simply doing three of them.

NoorFacilitatorSingapore

#23

Facilitator note: everything discussed here is a matter for you and your household. We are here for the ideas, not the decisions.

GildaTrieste, IT

#24

Reading Otti, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

I found the guides here on this more useful than anything else, because they treat it as a social problem rather than a nutritional one.

8me too 6