Wait, hang on, not wanting to be served poison for dinner is a cold calculating reptilian thing to do? What else do these reptilians do? Run the government?
What these reptilians do is only think about themselves.
If you're invited for dinner it doesn't mean that somebody owes you a meal. It means somebody wanted to make a nice gesture towards you and get to know you more intimately, perhaps to discuss important things.
You eat something before you go, because it's not about the food. You can ask about the ingredients when you are at the table.
Exactly. Because being invited for dinner is not about stuffing your belly for free, it is a social meeting with more important matters. So if you have an allergy or a diet, you can mention that when you're seated. The host can make something that suits you, and if they aren't able, you can just have the drinks. That's why you eat before going out to dinner, so you don't have to worry about your belly. And it is also very convenient in case if the cooking is just bad.
I've noticed that these kind of social rules and politeness has been increasingly lost in people, and it is because of widespread narcissism. It's "me, me, me". The result is that people don't invite each other to dinners or other social gatherings, and everybody is worse off because of that.
> So if you have an allergy or a diet, you can mention that when you're seated. The host can make something that suits you, and if they aren't able, you can just have the drinks.
If I invited someone over for dinner and went through the effort to prepare a nice meal for them, and they waited until they were seated at the table to tell me that the food I've just put on their plate is something they can't eat or they will go into anaphylaxis, I would be pretty ticked off. "Oh, don't worry, I ate ahead of time" would make me feel even more ticked off, because I wouldn't have gone through the effort and expense of preparing a nice meal just to have a bunch of uneaten food sitting on the table while we have a social meeting.
The purpose of giving the host a heads up about food allergies is to avoid the host putting effort into preparing a meal that the guest can't eat. How is it a better outcome for the guest to remain unfed, food to go to waste, and the host to have this information sprung on them at the last moment?
You're saying that this kind of gentle heads up is an indication of narcissism, but I think it's exactly the opposite. It's a way of helping to ensure that things go according to plan.
Then the problem is with you. Like I've repeated, it is not about the food, it's about the company. You're thinking about your effort and your expenses, but inviting somebody for dinner is a nice gesture. What if you burnt the food by mistake while stressing about in the kitchen? Should the guest have a right to be mad because they're not getting their delicious meal? Of course not (and I hope I didn't need to state this). So why should you be ticked off if somebody does not eat at a dinner? Exception if you are only two people, and it's really about the food. But then I'd expect you to combine things ahead.
> "Oh, don't worry, I ate ahead of time"
That's not something you tell and not something you ask.
> How is it a better outcome for the guest to remain unfed, food to go to waste, and the host to have this information sprung on them at the last moment?
Because it's not about the food. You eat the leftovers for lunch the next day. You have something at home that you can make the guests if they're really hungry and can't eat the main meal.
If you're invited for dinner it's not about you or your aching belly. It is about having a more intimate meeting with other people. So don't bother them about your diet unless they ask, and don't go on an empty belly. The guests are not there to get "fed", inviting somebody for dinner is an excuse to have a nice time in a relaxed environment with people you like or want to know better.
I cannot count the times someone felt the need to bend over backwards to accommodate me because of something I didn’t want to do/eat/drink/whatever when I‘d been perfectly fine without any special treatment and moving on with whatever we were doing.
