Eat In Front of Your Crush

Eating in front of your crush can fill you with anxiety. You may be afraid of being judged on what you eat and how much of it you eat, and you certainly don’t want to seem unattractive. Whether you are amongst friends or on a date, you can calm your social eating nerves. Choose your food wisely, use some table manners and focus on the company around you and the positive attention you are hopefully getting from your crush.

Steps

Calming Your Nerves

  1. Relax. This is easier said than done, but it is important to quell your anxiety in order to be able to eat. Being nervous is going to make it more difficult to eat and digest your food. It can also cause your hands to shake, leading to spills. Try to relax and appear calm and cool in front of your crush.[1]
    • Replace automatic negative thoughts with more rational ones.
    • If you are feeling judged, remember that everyone eats. It is perfectly normal and necessary.
    • Prepare for eating in front of your crush by eating socially around other people more often.
  2. Focus on the conversation. Many people eat too fast. Slow down. Take time to really enjoy your meal and the conversation with your friends and your crush. Spend less time worrying about eating and more time focusing on what your crush has to say. It’s really their company that you are interested in more than the food.[2]
    • Talk more between each bite.
    • Invite your crush into the conversation.
  3. Look forward to another activity after eating. This moment is not the end of the world. There are plenty of things to look forward to. If this moment of eating in front of your crush is freaking you out, focus on the future instead.[3]
    • Strike up a conversation about a movie that just came out.
    • If you are eating in the school cafeteria, talk about the classes you have coming up in the afternoon.
    • Keep it positive. Try to focus on things that make you happy to quell your nerves. Talk about your hobbies. Maybe you play a sport and have a big game coming up, or you’re reading a really good book.
  4. Seek therapy if your anxiety is overwhelming. The fact is, eating is normal. Everyone must eat in order to survive. Anxiety over eating in social situations can be the result of feeling judged or suffering from a poor personal body image. If you suspect you may have an eating disorder, ask for help.[4]
    • Check with your doctor if you notice effects on your health, like fatigue, severe weigh loss, or loss of your menstrual cycle.
    • Ask for support from your friends, family and a medical professional.
  5. Keep trying. Have hope in knowing that this will get easier the more you do it. You will become more comfortable in the company of your crush after you get to know each other better. Also, the more you practice eating in front of other people, you will eventually become more comfortable doing it in front of your crush.[5]

Appearing Normal When You’re Eating

  1. Chew with you mouth closed. Of course you want to look attractive in front of your crush. There is nothing attractive about seeing the half-chewed food you are about to swallow. Read for more tips on chewing with your mouth closed.[6]
    • Practice by chewing gum and making sure you keep your mouth closed.
    • Take smaller bites which fit better in your mouth and don’t require you to open too wide.
    • Eat softer foods which require less bite to get them down.
  2. Swallow before you talk. Talking with your mouth full makes your words a mumbly mess while showing off your half-chewed food. No matter how great of a quick quip of a response you have to what someone just said, take the time to swallow before you speak. Don’t feel pressured to answer questions right away. Take your time to chew and swallow. This will also keep you from accidentally choking, or spitting food at your crush, either of which could be devastating![6]
    • If someone asks you a question while your mouth is full, put your finger up to signal you need a minute to swallow.
    • Model good etiquette by not asking anyone questions when they have their mouth full. You can even stop yourself mid-question and say, “Sorry, I’ll wait until you're done eating.”
  3. Cover your mouth with a napkin. If you do take a bite that is too big, or start to cough while you are chewing, grab your napkin and cover your mouth. This will hide any unsightly chewing and if you cough some food out, you can catch it in your napkin.[7]

Choosing Food That is Easy to Eat

  1. Avoid foods that are messy. You may be worried about embarrassing yourself by making a mess. You want to look good in front of your crush. You certainly don’t want to slop food all over your outfit, or gross your crush out by eating food that ends up all over you. Make it easy on yourself by avoiding messy options.[8]
    • Eating spaghetti can lead to slurping long noodles and slopping sauce all over.
    • Choose salad over soup. Soup is another slurpy and splashy troublemaker.
    • Ice cream is a melty mess. You don’t want to have to be licking away at your dessert.
    • Take care with finger foods which will get sauce all over your fingers or drip toppings down your arms. Some culprits are burgers, and bbq or buffalo wings.
  2. Beware of foods that have too much crunch. Eating noisy food can seem very awkward, and draw unwanted attention to you while you are eating, especially if no one around you is talking while you are chewing. Choose what you will chew with the noise it makes in mind.[9]
    • Avoid foods you have to chew a LOT in order to swallow it. This will reduce the amount of time you are making noise with your food. An example of a tough to chew food would be Grape Nuts.
    • The crunchiest fruits and vegetables like apples, uncooked carrots and celery will make quite the crack.
    • Some chip companies pride themselves on making the loudest, crunchiest products. Some notorious brands are Kettle Brand, Cape Cod and Doritos.
  3. Stay fresh not stinky. You don’t want to have to worry about stinking the place up. Garlic is known to leave your breath stinky, but you also want to avoid things which could stink up the whole area or give you indigestion.[8]
    • Fish products, like tuna, can really send off a strong smell when opened in public.
    • Spicy foods from Indian food to Mexican food can be doubly problematic. Not only can they give off a strong odor, but they can lead to indigestion and gas.
  4. Choose a comfortable portion size. You may feel judged that you are eating too little or too much. Measure your food with your hands by comparing portions of your food to parts of your hand. This way you will go into your meal knowing what is the norm when it comes to portions. Even if the serving you receive is larger, you can eat only as much as is considered an appropriate portion.[10]
    • Your main meat portion of beef, chicken or fish should fit in the palm of your hand, which should equal about 3 ounces.
    • Eat a handful, or half a cup of a starch like noodles or rice.
    • A side vegetable portion, like cooked carrots, should match the size of your fist, which would be about 1 cup.
    • A bowl of salad should be the size of both of your fists put together or 2 cups.

Warnings

  • Feeling uncomfortable eating in front of people can also be a sign of Social Anxiety Disorder. If you are also uncomfortable in other social situations, which do not involve eating, consider talking to your doctor.[1]

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www.verywell.com/why-am-i-afraid-to-eat-in-front-of-people-3024319
  2. ↑ http://healthyenough.net/eat-slowly/
  3. ↑ http://lifehacker.com/how-to-solve-the-where-should-we-eat-argument-once-a-1634801417
  4. ↑ http://www.helpguide.org/articles/eating-disorders/eating-disorder-treatment-and-recovery.htm
  5. ↑ http://www.gurl.com/2014/01/28/i-used-to-hate-eating-in-front-of-guys-my-crush-food-issues-anxiety/
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 http://www.etiquettescholar.com/dining_etiquette/table_manners/bad_table_manners.html
  7. ↑ http://www.findalink.net/diningetiquette.php
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 http://www.citypages.com/restaurants/top-10-foods-you-should-never-eat-on-a-first-date-6600564
  9. ↑ http://www.miaminewtimes.com/restaurants/the-most-obnoxiously-noisy-foods-6588247
  10. ↑ http://www.healthyeating.org/Portals/0/Documents/Schools/Parent%20Ed/Portion_Sizes_Serving_Chart.pdf
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