AITAH for not eating so much at my boyfriend’s work dinner?

A Reddit user shared an emotional story about attending her boyfriend’s work dinner, where her eating habits, influenced by food sensitivities and preferences, caused unexpected conflict.

What started as a stressful event for her turned into a heated argument, leaving her questioning whether she was in the wrong. Read the full story below.

‘ AITAH for not eating so much at my boyfriend’s work dinner?’

I’ve never posted on here before so I apologize if I’m doing something wrong. This happened last night and I can’t stop thinking about it, so I’m hoping this will make things more clear for me. My boyfriend and I have been together for around 3 years now. I’m 21 and he’s 23.

Last night he had this big work dinner. He’s an account and it was hosted by his company so a lot of important people would be there, and he’s always talking about how important it is to keep connections. The first half of the dinner went really good, we talked to a bunch of people and everything.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always struggled with food. I don’t wanna say I’m a picky eater, but I just don’t like a lot of foods. I like my meals really simple and I have very little sauces or seasonings that are okay.

My boyfriend knows about it, and whenever he cooks for us he doesn’t really have an issue just making the meal plain for me first, then making his own plate. If something contains a lot of little things then i genuinely cannot eat it without gagging or spitting it out.

Anyways, i obviously knew that since it’s a dinner there would be food, and i was already stressing over if I would be able to eat the food that would be there. I thought it went well, I didn’t eat everything that was there and I didn’t exactly eat that much, but I thought I did good.

When we were headed back to our car he was acting different, he was much colder and wasn’t really that conversational. So naturally I asked him if he was mad at me, and he blew up on me.

He started saying how he shouldn’t have expected me to muster up even a semblance of maturity tonight, and how i could try to be a functioning adult for once. He said how he thought he could count on me to make a good impression tonight, and it was a business dinner not a casual night out.

He was so angry and i have never seen him this mad before. He also said how he’s not sure if he thinks I look cute while taking small bites, because I don’t and normal people don’t eat like that. The entire car ride after that was silent and none of us spoke.

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

AteStringCheeseShred −  \ “I don’t wanna say I’m a picky eater, but I just don’t like a lot of foods.” That’s you being a picky eater OP. The sooner you acknowledge that, the easier things will be.. Now that that’s out of the way… Your boyfriend is 23 years old.

I would hope to god that he literally just got out of college within the last year or two and is actually just now starting to put his big boy pants on and learn how to live in the real world because if you mean to tell me he’s been out here for 5+ years now wiping his own ass and still acts like this, that’s embarrassing as f**k.

I don’t care how important the people at this dinner seem to him, let alone how important he thinks HE is, he has no excuse for treating you that way. Even if you are an obnoxiously picky eater.

I can promise you that absolutely nobody in that entire building gave a single iota of a s**t how much or how little you ate, he seems to be the only one fixating on it… and news flash: he’s focused on it because he’s insecure as hell, either about you, himself, or both.

He is waving a huge red flag right in your face, OP. Especially when he is the one acting immature but tries to project that upon you. Imagine, if you will, that a grown man who actually has his s**t together isn’t going to be so preoccupied with the irrelevant opinions of coworkers

(let alone due to little more than some s**t-brained notion about “KeEpiNg CoNnEcTiOns”) that he is willing to berate you like that over something so trivial. My advice? Give him 3 months to pull his head out of his ass, apologize profusely, and accept that he’s never going to be \*that\* g**damn important, or kick him to the curb.. NTA.

EDIT: I tend to jump straight to advocating for breakups on posts like this, hence why I tried to give the benefit of the doubt and not be so harsh lately but I see a few of you say even that is extending too much grace so I’m inclined to admit that yes, even I would personally have dumped the other person by now – perhaps that isn’t so harsh in this case.

believe_in_claude −  NTA. I promise you no else one cares if you don’t finish your plate at a restaurant at a business dinner. The food is not the point. No one should be policing your eating. It would be rude if one of the other diners DID remark upon your eating habits.

Unless you didn’t eat anything and they asked politely if you were feeling alright. Your boyfriend is overreacting. It sounds like you have an extremely sensitive palate. I’m married to someone who has a lot of texture issues and the list of things they can stomach is shorter than the list of things they can’t.

As long as you aren’t complaining about the food you aren’t being rude. There’s still a huge misconception around “picky” eaters that they are childish and immature. Immature people refuse to try new things, complain about their food, make faces, and make themselves the center of attention.

Mature people who have limited palates are polite about their sensory issues and understand that they will not always be accommodated. Etiquette does not include forcing yourself to eat things that cause you distress.

MurnSwag2 −  NTA – WTF? Generally eating smaller bites is more polite, not less. I very much doubt anybody noticed, or cared if they did notice. Except your bf, who’s a total j**k. He’d better have an apology for you in the morning for going off on you like that.

Ok-Inflation4310 −  Sorry but anyone “blowing up on me “ for something as insignificant as that wouldn’t be my partner for long. It shows complete disrespect for you. I bet you can’t wait for the next time this happens because he’s shown what he’s really like and believe me it will.

anon_anon2022 −  Info: was he only talking about not eating a lot, or was there more to it? It’s a little unclear whether the complaint related to maturity more generally and the eating was a specific example.

Also, can you explain what you mean by small bites and what he said about that? It’s a little tough to understand what happened here and I think we need more detail. For example, there’s a wide range of what “small bites” could mean.

max-in-the-house −  NTA he’s overstepping his “authority” over what you eat. He is not in charge of you.

sunnysmyname −  NTA as long as you didn’t go complaining about the food to others or acting like you’re disgusted, you’re very free to eat whatever you like. I don’t even think people pay attention to how others eat as long as they’re not making chewing noise.. because wtf?

ii_akinae_ii −  hi OP, it sounds like you have ARFID. you should look into it. understanding what’s going on with your “picky eating” (i.e. that it’s a known disorder, not just a “you problem”) should help you manage it. good luck! also NTA.

Traditional_City_383 −  Not even joking or just being snarky but if he did that to me the entire relationship would’ve ended right there and then. No fighting. No explaining. Just over.

He showed you who he is and it’s not going to change so unless you like being berated for being yourself you should just get out before you let him waste any more of your time.

YellowBalloonDog −  It’s impossible to know if you are TA or not without more details. Because if “small bites” was you doing something strange like taking a pea-sized bite at a time while looking all uncomfortable.

Drawing lots of attention to yourself so that everybody was sure to know you didn’t like the food… well, I could see how that would make your partner feel embarrassed enough to become agitated…

but if “small bites” was just you acting completely normal and relaxed but simply not overloading your fork, then it’s a him problem not a you problem. Problem is, nobody here but you knows which it was, so any response to your AITAH would be a guess.

Do you think the Redditor’s eating habits were a reasonable concern, or was her boyfriend overly harsh in his response? How should partners handle situations like this at important events? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!