Social Guidelines for dealing with those with dietary restrictions
So, as I said, big family weekend, last week. It went pretty well, all things considered, I only had to be a bitch to Uncle N because he's a douche and I have a decided I don't need to put up with him being a douche in recent years. The worst that can possibly happen is that I won't get invited for Christmas and he'll bad mouth me to his own children, which I can deal with.
BUT, as usually happens, espacilly with out-of-town relatives, including Uncle S who is like my brother, and who therefore likes to find buttons and stab them repeatedly. As it does, the food thing came up. And I bore through it with such patience I'm proud. Basically he'd walk around with this big grin and comment about how they'd had the gluten removed from certain foods so I could eat them. Only, he was born and raised in California, and has lived in the south (Largely Alabama) for twenty years and has adopted that accent. How is it a southern accent can sound so lovely and pleasing, and yet so face-punch inducing? Anyway, I managed not to say anything, or just smile thinly until day three. Then I cracked. Over the waffles. "See? Safe. No gluten in them." and I said "And if you keep telling it, that joke will get funny."
You must understand, in my conflict-adjacent easy-going family, that is the height of bitchery.
Then the food thing came up again at lunch and I thought, 'Well, this is occasion #345 wherein my diet has put me on the spot. I guess I should blog about this.'
So I am.
For the record, I'm gluten-free, cow dairy-free, coffee free, citrus-free and I try to avoid some other things. Honestly, twice a year when I'm in San Diego I cheat and eat at Extraordinary Desserts, but people don't understand the idea of chosing not to eat something, but yet it's not an allergy. I'm not a vegan, cheese, bacon, honey, bring it on.
So, there follows a snarky list you can hand out to people if they have a sense of humor and want to know how to treat you.
1. Your jokes about my diet are not now nor will they ever be funny.
2. Your veiled criticism of my diet, either the convienance or the purpose of, within my earshot or to friends/family who will confide in me, make an already difficult situation humiliating and makes me not to go anywhere with you.
3. Your well-meaning and kind question about my diet when shouted down a table full of eating people and thus drawing their full and total attention to me makes me want to die.
4. I know you only want to help when offering suggestions to a dietary quandry I'm having in the corner, but the odds are you know my diet a quarter as well as I do, and dealing with your constant and well-intended input means I'm not solving the dining question at hand and probably holding the process (and possibly other diners) up.
5. I do not want to put you out as a host. I do not expect you to cater to me. I can make do and supplement later, because I probably have something extra in my purse, if I know I'm going somewhere with unfamilair food. If you would bear with me and answer a few questions about what went into the food, that's fantastic. If you did prepare food with me in mind I'm flattered, otherwise, please do not worry about it.
6. I am not going to cram my Diet Rules and Benefits down your throat. I probably will not elaborate unless you ask, but don't ask unless you're honestly interested because it's a topic I probably have a lot to say on. It's fine for you to say 'Oh, I see' and move onto another topic. You're not obligated to ask, and I don't want to discover your version of events is that a polite question got you pinned into twenty minutes of dull diet discourse you couldn't find a way out of.
7. It's super awesome that you're my diet buddy, who learned everything there was to know about my new eating habits, and who always has something I can eat handy. However, there is a time and a place to bring it up... and to not bring it up. Like, at company functions. In the middle of a restaurant, a party, a wedding or other social or business engagement wherein I may be surrounded by a lot of strangers and where I may inadvertently be insulting the hosts that I'm unable to eat what they supply. I honestly just want to enjoy the event, rather than make the host feel like they have to scramble to satisfy one complicated diner.
8. I may cheat on that diet because I'm HUMAN. I might decide I have nowhere to go on Sunday, so I'll eat a slice of cake and have that gas. It is not your job to chasten me, or to judge me or call attention to my trespass. I'm sorry I lack perfection. But because I cheat once every six months does not mean I don't appreciate the hard work you've done accomodating me. It doesn't mean I'm giving up or I don't care. It means I was craving some orange chicken no matter how bad it is for me and there are some cravings you cannot beat. By the same token, best not to help me cheat, either.
9. I've been gluten-free for ten years. It has nothing to do with Adkins or any other fad. Quizzing me about the sincerity of my diet makes you sound like one of those Tolkien fans who won't accept somone as a Ringer until they prove they were into Lord of the Rings before the movies came out. Either A- I'm reacting to a fad and it will go away, and chances are you know if I'm a person who responds zealously to fads then drops them, in which case there isn't much point to it as you're just proving something you already knew, or B- I've made a sincere life change. Either way, I don't need your validation.
10. Eating is a vital, sensual, joyful, warm process. It's difficult to have to modulate and change this most essential and, frankly, intimat, part of a life. To not eat things you want, to crave what you shouldn't have, or to end up eating soemthing that is a lackluster subsitution. It's not great process, and as much as it might suck for you to br touched by this on the fringe, think about how much it sucks for me living it full time.
I should mention that this list will only be useful to the people who don't want attention called to their diet. I elected to go on my current diet to help manage my illness, and I honestly prefer not to have it spotlighted because being under scrutiny makes me anxious and generally involves more of a conversation than I want to have with a casual aquiantences. A choice is different than an allergy, and when people sense you are flawed they want to know how exactly, and so then come questions you sometimes feel a social pressure to answer because you technically brought it up. There is no nice way to say 'Look if I eat the stupid sandwich I'll have gas all day tomorrow from the huge dose of flour and then the runs, and that's just not how I want to spend the day'.
HOWEVER.
We all know someone who, as point Number 6 skirts around, uses their dietary restrictions to open a conversation/conversion pitch/diatribe. Whether or not you ask, they pin you to a corner and go into dramatics about the horror of how cheese affects their digestive system or accuse you of eating the flesh of animals and therefore you have no soul, or how you would feel 500 times better (like them) if you just cut out all the grains and drank more wheatgrass. Or the ones who bring up thier diets at every single opprotunity to highlight how special/delicate/superior/healthy/righteous they are. The ones that know they are going somewhere outside the zone of their controlled diet, and yet don't plan ahead and have a dramatic meltdown when they can't eat at the exact moment they want. These are not the people of whom I speak. Those who use their Paleo/Vegan/Vegetarian/Raw Foodist/Low Salt/Diabetic lifestyle as a gimmick for attention, either for themselves or for a cause. And you all know who I am talking about, and the subtle difference between managing your diet, and putting neon lights on it.
BUT, as usually happens, espacilly with out-of-town relatives, including Uncle S who is like my brother, and who therefore likes to find buttons and stab them repeatedly. As it does, the food thing came up. And I bore through it with such patience I'm proud. Basically he'd walk around with this big grin and comment about how they'd had the gluten removed from certain foods so I could eat them. Only, he was born and raised in California, and has lived in the south (Largely Alabama) for twenty years and has adopted that accent. How is it a southern accent can sound so lovely and pleasing, and yet so face-punch inducing? Anyway, I managed not to say anything, or just smile thinly until day three. Then I cracked. Over the waffles. "See? Safe. No gluten in them." and I said "And if you keep telling it, that joke will get funny."
You must understand, in my conflict-adjacent easy-going family, that is the height of bitchery.
Then the food thing came up again at lunch and I thought, 'Well, this is occasion #345 wherein my diet has put me on the spot. I guess I should blog about this.'
So I am.
For the record, I'm gluten-free, cow dairy-free, coffee free, citrus-free and I try to avoid some other things. Honestly, twice a year when I'm in San Diego I cheat and eat at Extraordinary Desserts, but people don't understand the idea of chosing not to eat something, but yet it's not an allergy. I'm not a vegan, cheese, bacon, honey, bring it on.
So, there follows a snarky list you can hand out to people if they have a sense of humor and want to know how to treat you.
1. Your jokes about my diet are not now nor will they ever be funny.
2. Your veiled criticism of my diet, either the convienance or the purpose of, within my earshot or to friends/family who will confide in me, make an already difficult situation humiliating and makes me not to go anywhere with you.
3. Your well-meaning and kind question about my diet when shouted down a table full of eating people and thus drawing their full and total attention to me makes me want to die.
4. I know you only want to help when offering suggestions to a dietary quandry I'm having in the corner, but the odds are you know my diet a quarter as well as I do, and dealing with your constant and well-intended input means I'm not solving the dining question at hand and probably holding the process (and possibly other diners) up.
5. I do not want to put you out as a host. I do not expect you to cater to me. I can make do and supplement later, because I probably have something extra in my purse, if I know I'm going somewhere with unfamilair food. If you would bear with me and answer a few questions about what went into the food, that's fantastic. If you did prepare food with me in mind I'm flattered, otherwise, please do not worry about it.
6. I am not going to cram my Diet Rules and Benefits down your throat. I probably will not elaborate unless you ask, but don't ask unless you're honestly interested because it's a topic I probably have a lot to say on. It's fine for you to say 'Oh, I see' and move onto another topic. You're not obligated to ask, and I don't want to discover your version of events is that a polite question got you pinned into twenty minutes of dull diet discourse you couldn't find a way out of.
7. It's super awesome that you're my diet buddy, who learned everything there was to know about my new eating habits, and who always has something I can eat handy. However, there is a time and a place to bring it up... and to not bring it up. Like, at company functions. In the middle of a restaurant, a party, a wedding or other social or business engagement wherein I may be surrounded by a lot of strangers and where I may inadvertently be insulting the hosts that I'm unable to eat what they supply. I honestly just want to enjoy the event, rather than make the host feel like they have to scramble to satisfy one complicated diner.
8. I may cheat on that diet because I'm HUMAN. I might decide I have nowhere to go on Sunday, so I'll eat a slice of cake and have that gas. It is not your job to chasten me, or to judge me or call attention to my trespass. I'm sorry I lack perfection. But because I cheat once every six months does not mean I don't appreciate the hard work you've done accomodating me. It doesn't mean I'm giving up or I don't care. It means I was craving some orange chicken no matter how bad it is for me and there are some cravings you cannot beat. By the same token, best not to help me cheat, either.
9. I've been gluten-free for ten years. It has nothing to do with Adkins or any other fad. Quizzing me about the sincerity of my diet makes you sound like one of those Tolkien fans who won't accept somone as a Ringer until they prove they were into Lord of the Rings before the movies came out. Either A- I'm reacting to a fad and it will go away, and chances are you know if I'm a person who responds zealously to fads then drops them, in which case there isn't much point to it as you're just proving something you already knew, or B- I've made a sincere life change. Either way, I don't need your validation.
10. Eating is a vital, sensual, joyful, warm process. It's difficult to have to modulate and change this most essential and, frankly, intimat, part of a life. To not eat things you want, to crave what you shouldn't have, or to end up eating soemthing that is a lackluster subsitution. It's not great process, and as much as it might suck for you to br touched by this on the fringe, think about how much it sucks for me living it full time.
I should mention that this list will only be useful to the people who don't want attention called to their diet. I elected to go on my current diet to help manage my illness, and I honestly prefer not to have it spotlighted because being under scrutiny makes me anxious and generally involves more of a conversation than I want to have with a casual aquiantences. A choice is different than an allergy, and when people sense you are flawed they want to know how exactly, and so then come questions you sometimes feel a social pressure to answer because you technically brought it up. There is no nice way to say 'Look if I eat the stupid sandwich I'll have gas all day tomorrow from the huge dose of flour and then the runs, and that's just not how I want to spend the day'.
HOWEVER.
We all know someone who, as point Number 6 skirts around, uses their dietary restrictions to open a conversation/conversion pitch/diatribe. Whether or not you ask, they pin you to a corner and go into dramatics about the horror of how cheese affects their digestive system or accuse you of eating the flesh of animals and therefore you have no soul, or how you would feel 500 times better (like them) if you just cut out all the grains and drank more wheatgrass. Or the ones who bring up thier diets at every single opprotunity to highlight how special/delicate/superior/healthy/righteous they are. The ones that know they are going somewhere outside the zone of their controlled diet, and yet don't plan ahead and have a dramatic meltdown when they can't eat at the exact moment they want. These are not the people of whom I speak. Those who use their Paleo/Vegan/Vegetarian/Raw Foodist/Low Salt/Diabetic lifestyle as a gimmick for attention, either for themselves or for a cause. And you all know who I am talking about, and the subtle difference between managing your diet, and putting neon lights on it.