Eating Alone

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I eat lunch alone with my door shut at work. I keep to myself to stay out of trouble. Now I sort of like it. But it took time to get used to......

Perhaps, you can make a house rule that the entire family eats together and that P-Boy can play video games after supper.

I understand your feelings. I too prefer to eat dinner at the table as a family, but it doesn't happen as consistently as I'd like.

I often eat lunch alone at work, but do try to eat with others at least once every other week.

Telling P-boy something sends him spiraling into a chaos of "You're not my parent and why should you be able to make the rules". He doesn't entirely respect me as the older brother. He has had several behavioral issues as he grew up. The more he grew up the more behavioral problems occurred. And now he's sort of hard to deal with. Sometimes I wonder if helping him correct some negatives of his personality is completely hopeless. He just doesn't seem to care. He's hold up in his room like it's some fort in the middle of war, playing video games all day. He is in college, but didn't sign up this semester for college because last year he had a complete and total meltdown.

I hope he starts coming around in a few years.

I hope as well. He's like me, I had my one of my mid life crisises. Only difference was that I was fifteen when I was behaving like this. Now that I am older I hate seeing him go down the same path I did, but at a much later age.

We sort of went off topic. That's my fault too of course, haaa.

Well back on topic then I'm actually the opposite, I can't bear to eat with people probably due to social phobia. I also hate eating when it's completely silent so I prefer to have the tv on or some kind of background noise. For me this also means that I can't eat in restaurants at all because of feeling so self conscious. It's something I really wish I could overcome because as you say eating for a lot of people is a social thing aswell.

Me too!

I hate eating in company. There are few things that I dread more than being watched while I'm eating, having to watch and listen to other people eat, or -- the absolute worst thing -- having a dinner conversation I can either eat or chat, but not both at the same time. Two activities that involve the same orifice are mutually exclusive, imho. I don't know how other people manage to do that.

As a kid, I always used to read a book at the dinner table. At some point, my mother gave up asking me to put it away. (My father was like a well-trained dog and didn't get involved in her child rearing efforts unless she commanded him to. And she still complained all day long about how badly he allegedly treated her go figure).

When I got older, I took the meal to my room and ate alone. Since I live on my own, I always eat alone and rarely ever eat out. Processing food is a very private affair for me, no matter if it goes in or comes out. It's both part of the same process, both equally intimate, and both equally disgusting to watch someone else doing it.

I used to be like that but I guess I outgrew it eventually. I'm not sure when but I remember still being that way in my teens. In school they always hated how I wouldn't eat lunch at school and always got in trouble for it.One year my mother tried to let me eat in the classroom of this one teacher I liked and the teacher was willing but the school wouldn't allow it so I had to starve all year.

Er...that's...b.s.

I use to refuge in my next class. So if I was done with Math and after lunch I would have history class, I would store myself in the history classroom and eat lunch there. The teacher never really cared and the school didn't say anything.

I'm the opposite. I like eating alone, and I will only eat in front of someone I trust and know really well. At school, I eat in the medical room, because I've known the nurse for ages, and she likes me, so I eat lunch there and listen to the radio.

oh hell. do I love eating alone, somehow other people eating (all the noises it makes) really irratates me. why Im as quiet as a baby bird eating, all that noise is upsetting

I am thinking about what to say, in a way in which it will not make me look as if I am talking about myself so much.

I was just talking about this to some people yesterday.
My daughter quit coming to my house when she was 6.
I broke off all ties with women the following year.
My daughter is now 17 1/2 years old.
So there isn't a lot of people coming or going from my house anymore.

I came from a family of 8.
Being in the middle did not have any advantages, and being the oldest son didn't help matters any either.

I worked all my life, earning money to help the family's budget from the time when I was 5 or 6 years old.
Cutting grass with a push mower for the neighbors and also at our church cemetery, sawing timber in the woods for firewood, hauling coal and scrap iron to the salvage yard etc.

The money that I earned was used to purchase my school clothes and what ever else came along.
I never had nice shoes or school clothes like the other kids had, it made it real hard to fit in. My dad was tyrant and a idiot.

I never had much if any money - most times my pockets were empty all through my school years....
I can remember not having a bicycle until I was 12 years old - having earned $65.00 one summer cutting grass and being allowed to spend that money on myself for once.
My parents took me down to Monkey Wards and let me pick out a bicycle.
When my dad suggested a more expensive model - one costing $10.00 more, I balked and said - now how can I afford a bicycle like that when you know I only have $65.00? I think I was more grown up then most people because I realized that it was all the money I had and I never understood the concept of a loan.
If you didn't have the money, you couldn't buy it was my family's motto.

Mom and dad threw in the other $10.00 and the tax and I got my first bicycle!
Without wheels - it was hard to play with the other children in the neighborhood - because they all had wheels and they were always going off someplace to do things.

When I was 12 years old though- my family also got a swimming pool - which turned into the neighborhood pool, because none of the neighbor kids had their own swimming pool and a pool is no fun without others to play with.

Thinking back - mom and dad did not ever take us out to eat, unless it was a real special occasion - like the time my dad went with the Union to a US Steelworkers convention and he must have had some money left over from his per Diem and he took us all out to eat at a little restaurant that had just opened up.

We were often told when we asked to go someplace like McDonalds or Burger King or Winkies - that we had food at home and we didn't need to go out to eat. CHEAP!

Now back at home, mom was a good cook and she cooked more then enough for everyone.
When we ate supper - anyone that happened to be at our house when it was time to sit down was welcome to eat with us.
It was nothing to have 2 or 3 different faces sitting at the table at each meal.

When I graduated - my parents told me that I was not their responsibility anymore and to go find my own place to live.
I went to live with my mom's parents for a spell, and they were poor, but were extremely generous. Never asked me for a thin dime and never asked me to do anything and always appreciated everything that I did. My mom helped them out - until the day they died, washing their clothes at mom's house and carrying them up and down the road by hand - she never drove,, cooking their meals, cleaning their house, throwing them into the bath tub from time to time and scrubbing them down. It all worked out.
When they died, my aunts threw me out of the house and collected the money from the inheritance and left - never to be seen again. Only they were never around to help when the grandparents were alive...

The recipe's that were handed down to me were all for families of 7 - 9 people. Hence I do not know how to cook one ( single ) pork chop or one ( single ) piece of chicken.

After my grandparents died, I became homeless and I had to live in various places - with no running water, heat, electric - nothing.

I vowed every day of my life to try to make each day a little better then the day before and no matter how tough my life got, I always managed to put something on the table.
Because of my religion - I believe that when I eat, good old god is sitting there eating with me and that if Jesus was to come a knocking on my door that I wouldn't run him off - just because it was supper time - like my dad's mother would do to me when she ate supper with my uncle's and their families.

I always cook enough food for two people and I always set out a second place setting - just in case someone shows up.
Nobody ever does show up except my friend MO - but at least I know in my heart that no one has ever been turned away.

I don't know how much of this is a issue with you that you are looking for your younger siblings to obey you and to act like a family unit or how much of this has to do with you physically wanting to leave and have your own family or people who would not put this kind of stress upon you.
The only advice I can give you is that if you are unhappy with your situation to leave.
The people you are living with are dysfunctional and you probably need to find a better situation.

I hate eating by myself.
When I eat around others, I become very self conscience, because I worry that they are going to judge me.
Because I cannot afford to go out to eat, when I do go out to eat, I make sure that when ever possible, it is at a all you can eat buffet and I eat as much as I can possibly eat and then I don't have to eat anymore for that day.

When you stop and think about it, my entire food budget is only about $20.00
If I go out to eat - and it costs $10.00 - I just spend a half weeks budget in one sitting.

I always eat my breakfast, lunch and dinner alone i like it that way as i have my own personal space.

They are my brothers and I'm the older brother. One is fourteen years old. If I left after his mother left, after our cat died. I don't think he'd be able to handle that. It would be the breaking point for his little heart. I'm the older brother. That doesn't mean I don't get to complain from time to time.

I have no problem with going to a movie alone, but I would feel really weird eating at a restaurant by myself. (My NT ex feels the opposite way!)

Eating alone at home is fine, luckily (otherwise I'd starve to death!)