Paranoia about eating in public

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Do you feel uncomfortable eating in public or around others you are not totally at ease with? Are there certain foods that you will only eat when you are alone because they are messy and make you look silly? I can eat in a restaurant, but not if someone is staring at me and I am careful to cut everything up into tiny, neat pieces and not spill anything, of course that's the very time I am sure to end up with food in my lap that fell off the fork etc. But there are some types of food that I restrict my consumption to "home only", this includes anything that is not easy to contain while eating it or it may also include how the food is eaten, for instance I will eat chicken if I can cut it up, but I wouldn't be caught dead gnawing meat off a bone! I won't eat fruit that is not cut up into neat pieces in public either. Does anyone else have this kind of hang-up regarding food?

Yes, yes and yes.
I feel like my throat closes up if anyone's watching me eat.
I don't eat at work at all.
If I have to eat in public I do the same - cut my food into tiny pieces and take forever.
I bend over my plate so no-one can see me chew, or put my hand over my mouth.
I only order things that are manually easy to eat.
I don't like watching people eat, either.

Yep, yep, yep.

I'm a little anxious about eating in public, but not so much that I can't do it. I'm okay with restaurants sometimes. Most of the time though, I'll take the food home and eat it there.

I don't eat in public 99% of the time, as I don't usually eat in a civilized way, and I wouldn't want people watching.
In the very rare instance that I do, I get pretty nervous and tense. I try to take it slow and be extra careful, and I always end up getting something on my shirt as a result. The worst thing to try to eat at a restaurant or fast food place for me is noodles. Unfortunately, I usually remember that after I order them.

The one exception is when I'm with my best (and pretty much only) friend. She's the only person I feel like I can be myself around.

I'm not a fan of eating around people, period.

There are times where I will (at least once a week with my parents and on holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc) but aside from that, I don't like eating around other people. Hearing them chew, making weird noises, facial expressions, etc annoys me.

Yeah, I can relate, for several reasons.

I just can't eat sandwiches I made at home in school; the only way to do it, is to go to a spot just outside of the school and eat them there in solitude. I don't have this problem with preparing and eating bread at the table during, let's say, a schooltrip, though.

I don't like eating with my family. I spent decades of my life being criticized for the kinds of food, and quantity of food I was eating at each meal, due to my weight. Yes, I know I am overweight, so I don't need reminding, and I don't need people getting on my case about it. Fortunately, I live alone now, so I rarely have to eat with family anymore.

I do occasionally eat out, sometimes with family, sometimes alone. When we are at restaurants, my relatives usually don't hassle me as much, because they don't want to create a scene. I generally don't have problems when eating out alone. Once I did have problems getting served. I was sitting inside a Woolworth's store. They had a restaurant counter with counter stools, but no tables. There were only a few customers, but for some reason I was invisible to the lady behind the counter, even though I kept trying to get her attention. It was really weird. Occasionally other customers might be loud and roudy, but it's not aimed at me. Other than that, I never have trouble eating out alone. Strangers at other tables don't bug me, and I don't bug them.

Yes, definitely. I usually don't eat in public.
If I have to I will probably cut it up really small and take ages, like someone above said already.

It almost boarders on disordered eating with my husband.

One he has issues moving is limbs in space (I forget the actual word for this), and he has to actually think how to move glass, knife, fork, spoon around. I told him I have never done this (I'm NT) He was shocked, and could not believe that eating was all on autopilot.

He just eats "differently". He grew up in Europe, so he doesn't handle silverware like the average American. He doesn't like to touch food with his bare hands, and will use a knife and fork to eat a sandwich. If he can't get silverware (for things like pizza, sandwich, french fries), he will not eat. He has severe misophonia, and the sound of himself eating gags him and so does the sound of others eating too. I'm talking normal average eating sounds.

He's extremely underweight, and the doctors think he does "all this ritualistic stuff" for attention. I know that isn't true. I think if he could get a feeding tube, throw a can of formal in the bag, and be done with nutrition, my husband would be happy.

He hates all things to do with food.

Yes, I feel pretty uncomfortable and self-conscious if eating in public. I can do it and tolerate it but I don't feel happy. I always seem to be a bit of a messy eater even when I'm trying hard not to be. Actually the harder I try, the more messy I get. And the more self conscious I feel, the more messy I get with my food. I can't relax when eating around people and feeling like they might notice I'm a bit sloppy.

I far prefer to eat alone in solitude.

In truth:

It doesn't matter what people think of me when I eat in public.

I'm not very messy--but I'm not Emily Post-ish, either.

People should just mind their own effin business. There's lots more important things to think about besides who one looks while eating.

Proprioceptive dysfunction?
That's the first thing that came to mind.

That's it! I posted before my brain had coffee. Thanks.

Uhm what? I'm European (Norwegian), and in my family at least we have always eaten pizza and sandwiches with our hands, as well as grilled chicken with potato chips and white bread, and hamburgers. Pizza with forks is something I have never seen other than in a pizza commercial. There are a few types of bread meals we use fork and knife for, like ostesmørbrød, and bread slices with hot karbonade (nearest thing in English is hamburger) and pine apple on, and omelette. But they are a very small minority of sandwiches, and they all are either heated or the meat on them is.