What Do You Find Annoying in Dining Companions?

[sherribabee]

rasputin and hitler?

Hitler was a vegetarian. He couldn't be that pleasant a dining companion.

Rasputin could drink though.

yeah, well notice that i mentioned carl rove too! maybe not too pleasant but from the looks of the boy i'd say that he's been raiding the gally on air force one with great regularity. i just thought that i'd throw out some names of historical icons- pleasant or unpleasant. didn't know hitler was a vegetarian- i'd be interested to hear about real or fictional dining habits of historical figures. bet i'd be transfixed as rasputin chewedwith his mouth open! (an annoying, unpleasant eating habit!)

Heh. I'd like to get Jesus and Neitzsche together and see if they get into a food fight. Throw in John Stuart Mill, Homer Simpson, Ellen DeGeneres and Bono for some fun and interesting conversation and Pierce Brosnan for some eye candy, and I'd be one happy little camper.

[sherribabee]

I have a friend who is a huge drama queen and LOVES attention, even if it's negative attention. I absolutely dread dining out with her, but it's not entirely avoidable.

She's the one who will play 20 Questions with the server, asking how everything is prepared, even for foods she has no intention of ordering. When she does finally order, she comes up with a list of about 12 things that she wants changed to her specification. She ALWAYS, ALWAYS has to send her food back for some reason or another. She's simply obnoxious. I'm sure the servers spit in her food, I just hope they don't take it out on the rest of us. And she's a horribly picky eater, so if there's something on her plate that she doesn't like (and there always is) she thinks it is a bad restaurant and refuses to go there again.

And for all that she puts the servers through, she is a horrible tipper -- she thinks 15% is being extremely generous.

[SobaAddict70]

Oh man, Sherri.

Why DO you dine out with her? Good friends perhaps?

Soba

[hjshorter]

The most extreme example of this happened many years ago, at university, in a shared house. One of the inmates was a guy who had turned religiously vegetarian. If Charlie spotted any of the rest of us eating any sort of meat, he would make loud comments:

"Ugh. That's dead."

"You are eating decomposing flesh -- just think what that's doing to you."

"That meat is going to rot inside you, and you will rot with it."

This went on for many weeks, despite our objections and acts of revenge until one day I arrived to discover Charlie grilling a huge steak. He couldn't take another day of beansprouts or tofu.

Not my idea of a great dining companion!

Jonathan, how did you restrain yourselves from beating him senseless?

I roomed with a dear friend from high school for several years who was a moralistic vegatarian. He was convinced that his diet made him a better person. The universe got revenge on him by making him fall in love with a determined carnivore. They've been together for 13 years.

[Bicycle Lee]

one thing my mother always does:

if we go out for someone's birthday she makes subtle allusions to the fact that it is a birthday celebration. I can't stand it...

[Jason Perlow]

rasputin and hitler?

Hitler was a vegetarian. He couldn't be that pleasant a dining companion.

Rasputin could drink though.

yeah, well notice that i mentioned carl rove too! maybe not too pleasant but from the looks of the boy i'd say that he's been raiding the gally on air force one with great regularity. i just thought that i'd throw out some names of historical icons- pleasant or unpleasant. didn't know hitler was a vegetarian- i'd be interested to hear about real or fictional dining habits of historical figures. bet i'd be transfixed as rasputin chewedwith his mouth open! (an annoying, unpleasant eating habit!)

http://www.urbanlegends.com/celebrities/hi...vegetarian.html

http://www.veg.ca/newsletr/mayjun96/hitler.html

http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/hitler.html

http://www.geocities.com/hitlerwasavegetarian/

http://www.micahbooks.com/readingroom/Hitlerveg.html

Some people say it was an urban legend, but apparently he followed a diet that was for the most part vegetarian.

[megaira]

"Ugh. That's dead."

"You are eating decomposing flesh -- just think what that's doing to you."

"That meat is going to rot inside you, and you will rot with it."

These kind of comments are just begging the other person to pick up their steak and bitchslap the offender upside the head with it. "Well, what do you know! There's still some life in the ole' girl yet!"

This went on for many weeks, despite our objections and acts of revenge until one day I arrived to discover Charlie grilling a huge steak. He couldn't take another day of beansprouts or tofu.

Not my idea of a great dining companion

Perhaps there was a Dicken's-like twist & he was visited in the night by the Spirit of Ted Nugent.

Dining out:

There's not too much that bothers me when we go out to eat...we usually have to really like someone to feel like going out to eat with them and we're blessed to usually have pretty easy going, polite friends. That, or I'm out with a group of people and we're too busy talking for annoying habits to get too noticeable. The only thing about going out that has bothered me regarding dining companions in the last few years has been hub smoking at the table, if we somehow end up in the smoking section. He has a blind spot with that one, despite that he refrains from smoking in the house, car with me, etc.

I'm afraid to admit that if there's a situation where we have crappy service, I'm the annoying person - it drives me bananas and I have to force myself to keep my mouth shut. I get tense and exude...tenseness. I try to chill out, but then...figit figit figit (I'm figiting now thinking about it). We don't eat out too much and avoid chain restaurants all together if we can -if not, then we make a point to skip dinner rushes, etc.

Dining in, however...

We have houseguests that invite themselves out to visit regularily and they're both picky, persnickity eaters. Cooking for them is a giant pain in the butt, where normally I'd look forward to cooking for a guest. Last visit, Hubby finally got fed up with watching me struggle with them trying to figure out to make: "how about.... ok, how about..... alright, fine, how about...." and said to them "why don't you write a list of what you DO like, there's only about 5 things on it, how hard can it be?" and walked off. So there's first the puzzle of sorting out what they want to/will even eat, then there's the cooking with the background critique (below), then it's hub and I cleaning up alone in the kitchen while they wander off.

In this case, it's just best to narrow down the gipes to the biggest one, and that is the critique. Her mother worked in food service, and therefore is somehow the fucking guru of all that is food. I don't mind suggestions, I do mind being told how to do/not do something. her: "well my mother does it this way" me: "that's not the way I'm doing it" her: "well my mother worked for X years in food service, I should think she'd know." In the back of my head, my internal bitch offers to drop kick her the 600 miles back to her mother's house,where she'll probably be just on time for dinner.

The one arguement was that chicken had to be cooked to a temperature of 180 degrees to be "safe." I can't even remember how it came up, other than that I was making fried chicken.

I pointed out the instant kill temp for salmonella is 160. Like a tape on "loop": "well my mother worked in food service for X number of years and if anyone knows food safety it's her and she says ..."

We ended up having to haul out Corriher, McGee, Alton etc. before she'd be satisfied. Another morning, I thought I'd get up and make them some pancakes. Her mother, however, doesn't let pancake batter rest and in the 20 years she's been making pancakes... Funny, I don't remember owning a pair of pjs with a "dump your unsolicited opinion on me about my cooking while I make your f'ing breakfast."

Edited October 27, 2003 by megaira (log)

[iain]

I have a friend who I feel orders rather inappropriately whenever we dine together. More often than not, when in a nice-ish restaurant, the rest of the party will order an app and entree each, and she'll order a cup of soup to start followed by a plate of mashed potatoes - or some other side - as her main. Or one app only, to be served when the rest of us are served our entrees. Of course, this leads to server confusion, not to mention bad timing issues (she's done well ahead of everyone else) and makes splitting the bill complicated. She's not really a light eater, and even if she is, she should make an effort to come hungry, I think. Granted, she's a vegetarian and choices are sometimes limited, but this happens even if she's chosen the restaurant.

[bloviatrix]

Another thing that annoys me are people who figure out the check to the penny because they don't want to pay any more than what their portion of the bill came to. Some even take out calculators. Now, this isn't a fatal flaw. But, I find that level of cheapness to be irritating.

[browniebaker]

Annoying is a good friend of my husband's, who orders a plate of plain steamed broccoli as a side, no matter what restaurant he is in. He even did this at a Chinese restaurant where the dishes are being ordered for everyone to share and, what's more, he was there as a guest.

[browniebaker]

Another annoyance: the acquaintance who, at dim sum where the dishes were for sharing, touched her saliva-coated chopstick ends to all the food, picking it over, before selecting the items that she wanted. Eewww. I didn't eat very much that time.

[ivan]

My goodness, it's brutal out there. Reminds me why I choose dining venues that preclude public mastication, irrelevant commentary and copious menu choices. Having said that, it annoys the hell out of me when the guy in front of me in the drive-through orders a Big Mac with no cheese.

[sherribabee]

Oh man, Sherri.

Why DO you dine out with her?  Good friends perhaps?

Soba

She's part of a group of friends.

I never dine with her alone though. I'm too young to be put away for homicide, no matter how justifiable it may be.

They need to come out with a reality show where they videotape people in social situations then show the videos back to them and tell them to observe other people's reactions to their behavior.

[Al_Dente]

My goodness, it's brutal out there. Reminds me why I choose dining venues that preclude public mastication, irrelevant commentary and copious menu choices. Having said that, it annoys the hell out of me when the guy in front of me in the drive-through orders a Big Mac with no cheese.

As I read that post, I totally misread "mastication".

[ivan]

As I read that post, I totally misread "mastication". 

My plan worked perfectly!

[Bux]

one thing my mother always does:

if we go out for someone's birthday she makes subtle allusions to the fact that it is a birthday celebration. I can't stand it...

My mother took it a step further and would let the reservationist know it was a birthday. Sadly, she did it in the wrong place at the wrong time and we refused to dine with her for some time--at least until we felt she understood how we felt about. Neither my wife nor I ever got a candle in the middle of our dessert again.

[sherribabee]

In this case, it's just best to narrow down the gipes to the biggest one, and that is the critique.  Her mother worked in food service, and therefore is somehow the fucking guru of all that is food.  I don't mind suggestions, I do mind being told how to do/not do something.  her: "well my mother does it this way" me: "that's not the way I'm doing it"  her: "well my mother worked for X years in food service, I should think she'd know."  In the back of my head, my internal bitch offers to drop kick her the 600 miles back to her mother's house,where she'll probably be just on time for dinner.

To those individuals I'd simply say, "then why don't you go ask so-and-so to fix your meal?" or "If you don't like the way I cook, why the hell do you keep coming over?"

How dare someone repeatedly critique YOUR way of cooking in YOUR home.

[sherribabee]

My goodness, it's brutal out there. Reminds me why I choose dining venues that preclude public mastication, irrelevant commentary and copious menu choices. Having said that, it annoys the hell out of me when the guy in front of me in the drive-through orders a Big Mac with no cheese.

As I read that post, I totally misread "mastication".

I remember in school when we had masticate as a vocabulary word. We had a great deal of fun walking around saying things like "I masticated during lunch" and "my mom caught me masticating last night".

[Squeat Mungry]

Another thing that annoys me are people who figure out the check to the penny because they don't want to pay any more than what their portion of the bill came to.  Some even take out calculators.  Now, this isn't a fatal flaw.  But, I find that level of cheapness to be irritating.

I once went on a road trip with a good friend and her then-new boyfriend. This guy would memorize the price of his entree from the menu, and at the end of the meal deposit exactly that amount on the table as his contribution. No tax, no tip, no money for his beverage. She pretended not to notice, and quietly made up the difference.

No idea if he still does this, because I now see this friend only sans partner. (She ended up marrying the guy -- none of her friends can stand him to this day.)

Squeat

[megaira]

To those individuals I'd simply say, "then why don't you go ask so-and-so to fix your meal?" or "If you don't like the way I cook, why the hell do you keep coming over?"

How dare someone repeatedly critique YOUR way of cooking in YOUR home

I will buy you a plane ticket and pay for the rental car if you would.

[hillbill]

[Heh.  I'd like to get Jesus and Neitzsche together and see if they get into a food fight.  Throw in John Stuart Mill, Homer Simpson, Ellen DeGeneres and Bono for some fun and interesting conversation and Pierce Brosnan   for some eye candy, and I'd be one happy little camper.

My money's on Homer. But don't forget to invite Bluto (John Belushi) from Animal House.

[sherribabee]

To those individuals I'd simply say, "then why don't you go ask so-and-so to fix your meal?" or "If you don't like the way I cook, why the hell do you keep coming over?"

How dare someone repeatedly critique YOUR way of cooking in YOUR home

I will buy you a plane ticket and pay for the rental car if you would.

Aw-right! I'm there!

[Toliver]

Another thing that annoys me are people who figure out the check to the penny because they don't want to pay any more than what their portion of the bill came to.  Some even take out calculators.  Now, this isn't a fatal flaw.  But, I find that level of cheapness to be irritating.

I don't mind the calculators. I'd rather find out exactly what I have to pay rather than to pay for my share plus some more because someone was an idiot (or cheap) and didn't leave enough for their share of the tax and/or tip.

I don't see it as being cheap, necessarily. I like to put a positive spin on it and think it's only someone being anal retentitve.

[hillbill]

Another thing that annoys me are people who figure out the check to the penny because they don't want to pay any more than what their portion of the bill came to.  Some even take out calculators.  Now, this isn't a fatal flaw.  But, I find that level of cheapness to be irritating.

I don't mind the calculators. I'd rather find out exactly what I have to pay rather than to pay for my share plus some more because someone was an idiot (or cheap) and didn't leave enough for their share of the tax and/or tip.

I don't see it as being cheap, necessarily. I like to put a positive spin on it and think it's only someone being anal retentitve.

I would agree that underpaying-cheap is the flip-side of calculator-cheap. And issues surrounding money are so complex, convoluted, and emotional that I'd imagine it's better to calculate out when in doubt. Especially in larger, heterogeneous groups some people might genuinely have economic rather than cheapness reasons for being concerned about paying more than their share, especially if they order less or less expensive items than others.

[hjshorter]

Another annoyance: the acquaintance who, at dim sum where the dishes were for sharing, touched her saliva-coated chopstick ends to all the food, picking it over, before selecting the items that she wanted. Eewww. I didn't eat very much that time.

I was taught to use the butt-end of my chopsticks to serve myself from communal plates if no utensils are provided. Does anyone else do that?