Going to a restaurant is terrible

Post Reply New Topic

Before I start this off, this is David ( my friend is letting me use his account to post) but any who
going to a restaurant really sucks, the background noise of the music + the noise of the people chatting,
different conversations all at once, then the smell of the food, and then your date in front of you asking

"hey!! ! are u distracted ?"

Not to mention the whole entire time you are saying to yourself "I wish I was home instead"

For me, it can be a good experience if it's a fairly quiet place run by somebody who isn't making a big profit off my back, if the company is good and if the food is to my liking (which isn't all that likely but it has been known to happen). But mostly it's fallen short of those criteria and I'd usually rather spend my money on more rewarding things.

I always quickly scan a place for unpleasant noise, harsh light, tables too close together, etc. before commiting to sitting down.

To eat inside a restaurant, you have to be fully vaccinated. At least, in the county I live in.

Restaurants $$$$

Some restaurants look dirty

Some restaurants are less hygienic than they appear

Not enough litterboxes

Getting pressured to eat too much

Having to worry about table manners

Worrying about calories

Needless to say, I have not gone to a restaurant for a couple of years. Unless something extreme happens, that I have never imagined before, I am never going to eat at a restaurant again

In restaurants I tend to dissociate from the over stimulation.
My company needs to be really entertaining to keep my focus.

The only thing that upsets me in restaurants is crying babies and toddlers. Take those away and restaurants are great.

I've never liked going to restaurants. I don't like eating around other people and going in public gives me anxiety.

The special times at special placies and spaces restaurants and all the proper rants on wants and aughts of the socialy acceptable restauranting experience . . .

I only get saved from some by Coviding rules, fast fooding places and my diet allergies , both the real and the faked

-=-Pre-Pandemic I liked restaurants, but...-=-

My bride had a "life" so I was often on my own for lunch and I often went out for fast-food. There were specific fast-food places (with specific orders at each) that I tended to go to. (My orders were so predictable that at one place the cashier started ringing up my order before I got to the counter!) I always tried to get there well before noon so it would be less busy.

Some evenings^usually my bride and I would enjoy an outing for supper. Again, there were some restaurants I favored and my orders were often predictable. Again, I tried to get there early enough to beat the dinner crowds. I do try to talk to my bride when we do this but she typically has her eyes glued to her phone so interaction is largely optional.

-=-Pandemic...-=-

I've avoided going out and she only occasionally wants to order out...I think she prefers cooking. I went through my records and worked out the last places we've eaten at before the Pandemic and would like to resume eating out by visiting them again, in reverse order, after the Pandemic. There was a two-month lull in the Pandemic in our area where I was comfortable going out so I and we got out a few times before it seemed prudent to return to hunker-down-at-home mode.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about Covid. I've no problem about being vaccinated, but I'd still see going to a restaurant as an entirely avoidable risk, and I don't understand why so many people see restauranting as so important that they're prepared to take that risk. It's not hard to prepare a bit of simple food for yourself in your own kitchen or to pack a lunch box to take with you if you have to go anywhere. I get that a lot of people really enjoy the experience, but it's a needless "luxury." And just listen to the managers of the hospitality industry pushing for everybody to risk their lives just so the restaurants can fleece them. With that kind of disregard for human life, do you really trust them to feed you?

This is accurate for me. Way too much sensory overload. Luckily, I have a partner who hates it just as much as me We often get takeout or carryout and have our dates elsewhere (at home or somewhere quiet).

Agreed. I used to have to go to this one Mexican restaurant a lot with my grandparents, it was sensory hell. I hated the food, their plain tacos sucked in my opinion and were too messy. Tbh they smelled terrible. And I was expected to say I liked it, because if I behaved in one wrong way, everyone would stare at me weird. Ordering was also hell, either masking to the max or not being heard.
I could enjoy a chill restaurant with food I like, but I can't stand most of the places I'm forced to go with family. I have no choice, so I go, and I know it makes them happy, but I constantly force myself through sensory hell and have meltdowns (they call them panic attacks) for them. I hate it.

I would rather get a takeaway to be honest.

Restaurants themselves don't bother me. I'm not really sensitive to noise and things like that. It's the menu's that I struggle with. I just find them really difficult to read. I always end up having what someone else is having.

Plus I'm not very good with fuss. I'm so shy so I don't like any kind of fuss even if it's just a waitress asking If everything is OK. I wouldn't hide under the table or anything, I can deal with it really well but I'd just rather not have to.

Doesn't matter which restaurant I go to, whether it's a fancy, mature sort of place or not, I always get a big family come to the table next to me.

One time me and my mum had lunch in a quiet little restaurant that had an upstairs. There wasn't many people sitting downstairs, but we decided to go upstairs anyway, and it was so peaceful up there with nice, calming music. But just as we were about to tuck into a delicious meal, a family came stomping upstairs; 4 noisy brats all under the age of 5. There was no highchairs upstairs so they went back downstairs to bring up two highchairs and dragged them across the wooden floor to the table right next to us (even though there were other available tables). One of the brats had a full on screaming meltdown because it didn't want to sit in one of the highchairs, the two oldest brats ran around the room shouting....it really spoilt our meal. And the parents didn't seem to control them. The oldest kids were messy eaters too and seemed to have no table manners. I really don't know why they didn't just sit downstairs if there were empty tables available and where the highchairs originally were. It seemed like the upstairs was purposely designed for adults or older children who just want a meal in peace.

If a restaurant has music that I like and there aren't too many crazy parents letting their kids run around or being overly strict with their children, than I'm fine. Other than that, I'd rather eat at home.

Last time I went to a restaurant, a little girl threw a fork over her shoulder, which almost hit my partner in the head.
She also threw lettuce around and turned over her chair.
The mother had to restrain her for the rest of the meal on her lap, but still the little girl was pulling her mother's hair and clothing and trying to upset things on the table.
I had the feeling the girl was autistic.