Restaurants

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Does anyone else here find eating at restaurants to be particularly difficult thing to deal with?

I find that the noise of the kitchen, so many people talking at once, the background music, people brushing by you on the way to their tables, etc. is almost more than I can handle. Not to mention a waiter that stops by every ten minutes asking if everything is okay. And, trying to figure out what one wants from the menu...how would I know? I've never had it before. When they ask what I want the only thing I think is 'to be in my house eating a peanut butter sandwich'. I just can't comprehend how people find this to be an enjoyable experience.

The worst place I have eaten at is ihop for their noise and activity level and will never eat there again. It was literally unbearable. But I really have a hard time eating out in general. I like the idea of ordering anything I want from a menu, having it prepared and such but actually going through all it takes for me to deal with the environment is enough to make me too sick to be able to really deal with it, much less enjoy. I have to be in a near complete dissociated state to be able to pull it off with a relative degree of comfort but even then of course it isn't because I'm so disconnected and not really there. I never figured out what the problem with it was before now but it's clear it's all about the sensory overload problems and issues.

Not a problem with me.

i hate it but if i'm in a large enough group it is ok as i'm surrounded by friends. if it is quite then it is sometimes ok.

I seem to get migraines every time I eat at a restaurant as a result of sensory overload. I put up with it because I like the food.

I love restaurant food from time to time, but I'd rather just order it to go and consume it at my home. If possible, I order it online, and then pick it up wordlessly before walking home with it.

It's awful, the server coming by . . . and the loud people around (worse if it is a restaurant that people with children frequent) but the thing I find most intrusive and rude is the manager making the rounds to check on everything.

I've worked in restaurants, and for the life of me, from either side of the table, I still don't understand why this is done. And if you tell the person to go away and leave you alone. . . they don't. Instead, the manager becomes concerned something is wrong.

I didn't come to your establishment to chat you up! I came because you cooked a dish I cannot duplicate at home!

Grr.

So, then . . . yes.

I am not such a fan of restaurants, and I agree with the person who said that ihop is particularly troublesome. Although I enjoy getting a break from cooking, generally going out to eat turns into a not-very-relaxing experience.

Although I usually love the food, I have a really hard time with restaurants, especially if they are crowded, and/or noisy. It often becomes impossible for me to eat with so many people around. The whole restaurant "protocol" is too much for me. I'd much rather get carry-out and eat the food at home...

I don't mind the food (as long as it's something I'm used to) just the restaurant experience. If I can get someone to pick something up for me (I don't drive) while they are out then that's fine with me since I'm a terrible cook.

^ I agree, the upscale restaurants are a lot more tolerable many times. I have trouble with ear plugs because I have extreme touch sensitivity and it actually hurts and bothers my ears a lot when I have tried to use them.

I don't know how to use a restaurant. I can order at a fast-food place, but the kind where you sit down to eat, I've never done on my own. So the question is kind of beside the point for me. I'm not sure I would like it; and besides, it would be awfully expensive.

I am often (usually) a bit apprehensive when going to a restaurant for the first time.

There is the internal dialogue about what will it be like? Too noisy, too hot, the service, are the chairs hard or soft and are the chairs around the table touching......or just too close together anyway?

I think my personal dining nemesis is the 'hotel buffet' (whether it's breakfast or lunch)

It's the wrong kind of food and what there is sucks; it feels like feeding time at a zoo, as aweful as the food is I still have to WAIT in line and it is overpriced!

The whole experience for me is very Dickensian

I no longer attend the hotel 'buffet breakfast' when I am travelling on business which makes for a much more positive start to my working day!

For me, it's the background music, and the fact that the waiteresses are required to look like they're female, with their tight uniforms. Welcome to the 21st Century!

I don't go to resturants because I don't have anybody to go with. I don't wanna go with my parents . Any females wanna take me out?