Day 14: Surviving Socializing
It is one thing to stick to a way of eating within the confines of one’s own home. Eating elsewhere, however, can put serious temptations in one’s way.
But I passed! With flying colours!
Last Friday, the Lion and I spent a glorious late afternoon on outdoor patios with another couple. This generally involves beer and platters of pub food. I had water and food that completely avoided my taboos of flour. All good. And we saved money because purchasing alcohol at restaurants is expensive.
Saturday was a Lion family reunion. This was a bit more challenging in that everyone was thrusting wine, beer and alcohol spiked punch at me, while chattering away in French about how I needed a drink. I politely explained, in English, that I had a drink I was happy with, and waved my water bottle. Which led to clucking of tongues and shaking of heads.
It’s okay, I think they simply wrote me off as some crazy English woman, who didn’t know how to have a good time.
The meal was pot luck, and all I had to do was not take a bun. There was plenty of yummy good on my ’safe’ list to fill me up.
But then they brought out the dessert tray and cake. The cake was easy to turn down. It was Black Forest Cake, and I do not like cherries. Problem solved because that particular dessert was repulsive to me. But the trays of dessert squares? I love dessert squares. I briefly considered the dessert squares. I looked at the Lion licking the Nanaimo bar chocolate off his fingers …. then I went for a walk.
No desserts for me AND I got some exercise!
Truth be told, it really wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. The most challenging part is having to constantly explain to other people why I am not drinking alcohol, or not eating the desserts.
What’s with all this peer pressure? Honestly, why does anyone even care what I put into my body?
Some care because they really want you to have a good time and are worried that you won’t.
Some care because they feel guilty about the abuse they are doing to themselves and want to share the pain.
I only care that you have somehow lost your mind. Black forest cake is one of the major benefits of a truly civilized society.
The authorities have been alerted about your heresy.
We had a whole houseful of family last week. We had no beer, no wine & no coffee nor tea. We do not know where the Beer Store or LCBO is in our town & we don’t drink coffee or tea (i.e. caffeine). We had fruit salad for dessert. Everybody now thinks we’re weird.
You’re welcome to come to dinner though! Sounds like you’d enjoy what we serve.
Sounds delightful! And why explain? Someone once said to me that “I don’t want to” is a perfectly valid explanation.
I agree with Dot - “I don’t feel like it” is more than enough of an explanation - anything else is asking for approval and permission.
In Spanish there’s a great line that I’m learning to say:
“Y a ti, que te importa?”
Translation…”And what’s it to you?” except that with all the t’s it rolls off the tongue so much better.
@Dot and Alex - actually, I didn’t explain. I just politely said “No thanks, happy with my water.” Oddly, the Lion felt it necessary to explain that I was on a Special Diet. And only for 3 weeks he assured them. If he keeps this up, we are going to have to have another Talk and figure out what his concerns are
J-rock and I went to a nieces birthday party on Sunday, I knew ahead of time that the food would be burgers and buns, hot dogs, cake, icecream, and some other potluck food.
I’m not able to eat any of that w/out feeling extremely ill and uncomfortable, so I packed vegetarian/wheat free/yeast free meals for the entire day. (we left early , so I packed my own breakfast, snacks, lunch and dinner)
Some asked questions on why I wasn’t eating what was prepared (I explained that I wasn’t being rude, but wasnt’ able to eat any of it, ) and it was left at that.
Haven’t gone to a restaurant in a really long time…so we’ll see how that goes- think we went to McDonald’s a couple of months back, and I ordered the garden salad (no dressing) and a small chicken nuggets and a chocolate milk. Before ordering though I was looking at the nutrition menu to see what the best options were. So I think I made good choices for the excursion.