Kate Hackett
Oh boy, you guys, I cannot even imagine how mortified I would be if someone I barely knew made a comment like this to me in college.
We have this story on Reddit’s AITA sub wondering if u/throwaway0856742 was in the wrong for telling a fellow student to stop wasting food. Here’s her tale.
OP says that she and a group of friends sit together to eat. Another girl OP doesn’t know very well also sits with them and doesn’t eat much off of her plate.
I (21f) usually always sit with the same group of people in my university’s dining area. There’s this girl who i’ve talked to a few times, but i’m not really friends with. She’s kind of quiet, but when she finally talks she seems normal. I’ve sat across from her a few times and noticed how she was eating because it was weird to me.
OP explains that she thinks the girl should just take less from the university’s buffet-style meal plan.
She eats maybe half of her food (keep in mind you control the amount of food. it’s cooked by the cafeteria staff buffet-style. she could easily take less) and kind of plays with it with her fork when she’s “done” (aka eating half of it, sometimes even less).
A few weeks ago, OP asked her what was up. The girl was embarrassed and tried to brush it off. But OP wouldn’t let her!
I didn’t say anything for a while, but a few weeks ago I had to ask her why she always only ate half her food. She seemed a embarrassed, but answered she thought she was more hungry and laughed it off. I then asked her why she made this mistake every time we ate, and that she must have learned by now.
So this poor girl leaves the dining hall and doesn’t really come by as much, but when she does, she keeps playing with her food and not eating it.
She didn’t really answer (I don’t actually remember, but it wasn’t actually an explanation) and left pretty quickly. She doesn’t really show up that much anymore, but when she does she still eats like this, and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I asked her once again, and also asked her if her parents never told her not to play with her food.
So OP asked AGAIN, this time rudely, about the food. This girl got angry and told OP it wasn’t her business.
It was a genuine question, some people are raised in households where manners aren’t important, but obviously they are for most people. She got really mad at me and told me to stop commenting on her eating habits and that it was none of my business. I told her that it absolutely was since she was sitting at our table and obviously wasting food. She told me to go fuck myself and left and threw out the rest of her food (AGAIN!)
The girl hasn’t come back and OP’s friends think she was being a jerk. Because she was.
After she left, one of my friends told me to leave her alone as she seemed like she was having a hard time and maybe had some sort of issue with food. Yeah, obviously she has an issue with food?? She keeps wasting it! She hasn’t shown up again, i’m assuming she buys her own food now, which might teach her not to waste it so that’s good. The same friend who told me to leave her alone keeps pestering me to apologise to her, but I think she should apologise to me. She’s unnecessarily rude when being asked the most basic and obvious questions and also told me to go fuck myself? That’s way more harsh than anything i’ve ever told her. Keep in mind that I care a lot about food waste and the environment. AITA for telling a girl to stop wasting food?
Reddit handed her an asshole verdict and, uh, well. Yeesh.
EDIT: OK! I’m the asshole! Sorry i’m not studying to be an eating disorder specialist. I looked up stuff about it and i’m realising I was too harsh. I’ll apologise the next time I see her and try not to be so condescending. But you should all follow your own advice. If people genuinely don’t know something you should tell them nicely instead, and i realise i should’ve tried to educate her NICELY about food waste and not have commented at all on how she was eating
Another person was more verbose:
YTA.
It was hard to even read the whole thing. Why are you so concerned what this stranger is doing in the cafeteria?
As much as I hate seeing wasted food what do you think is happening to all the food that isn’t ate that’s cooked at your school? It goes to waste. Same thing happens at a lot of fast food chains and restaurants.
The fact that you really kind of don’t understand how awkward and embarrassing it is that you felt confident enough to walk up to someone and ask why they don’t eat all their food / is wasteful is odd to me.
What if she always thinks she’s able to eat more than she actually is able to? Thinks a dish is going to be good but then after a few bites decides it’s not? Who are you really to say? The fact that you feel entitled to an answer to the question is also odd to me.
