Talking or being interrupted when eating

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Do you dislike it when your having luch/dinner and enjoying your meal and someone wants to talk to you or make you do something mentally taxing while eating luch/dinner. I.e. people/parents asking you questions, being made to explain something, or having to do something mentally taxting ect... i always hate that. Do you relate?

A little bit. I'm usually pretty quiet while I'm eating and just let others talk as much as they like with simple acknowledgements from me; just enough to keep things flowing without being rude. Are there specific things you don't want to discuss at those times, or is it just the act of having a conversation during a meal?

No one disturbs me whilst i'm eating. They must know better...joke.

I can't understand when people get up in the middle of a meal to go to the toilet.

It's completely beyond me.

Why can't they hang on?

In 99% of restaurants,
whenever you take a great big bite of food
and have your mouth full ...
that's the exact moment when
the waitress comes over and asks
"Is everything okay?"
and then she runs away as fast as she can
before you have a chance to answer.

Sometimes I mention this to the waitress
because it's so obvious.

On the other hand, a good waitress who
treats me decently and talks to me
when I can answer
without her interrupting my meal
gets a nice big tip.

I've never really thought about it. I don't mind talking when I'm eating.

Well, sitting and trying to eat when you've got a full bladder can be very uncomfortable and it's hard to enjoy your meal if all you can focus on is holding your bladder. Plus, if people are talking to you while you're eating, the meal can drag out for longer than you can reasonably hold it if you want to try for some reason.

It's probably because I wolf my food and never utter a word whilst I eat. It doesn't actually touch the sides most of the time.

My daughter takes aaaaaages eating her food and often needs a toilet break half way through a meal.

I've never questioned her on it but it has always baffled me. hahahaha...I understand now.

That's actually how I usually eat, too, but I was thinking more about restaurant situations for some reason.

Haha I think they do this on purpose, so no one can complain!

One time I had a gigantic, messy 'slice' of pizza the size of Texas, and was carefully holding it in both hands, and had just managed to lift it up to my mouth and take my first bite - And the waitress asked if I was finished, and took my plate away!

As to the OP's question... I have a weird sensory problem where I can't focus on what someone is saying and taste food at the same time - so if someone is talking, the food tastes like sawdust.

I have to turn the telly up really loud when I'm eating.

It's not even because I can't hear the telly.

But I can't enjoy my food if the telly's not full blast.

Really, really hope you tip in both situations! That's part of their already meager wages.

But yeah, this is weird to me. It took a while before I realized the folks in retail asking if they can help me with anything are kind of required to do that. Think about it for a while and it becomes kind of funny; when the person being asked these questions is autistic, it's very possible nobody involved wants them asked.



You're not the only one.

"Hold on, give me a few minutes to eat this entire steak and then I'll answer your question."

Yes! I dislike it.

I've never been able to master the art of eating a meal in a reasonable amount of time, while also trying to have a conversation. It feels like if I pay proper attention to the conversation and give my responses, I neglect my food and wind up still trying to finish my meal while the other person or people have already downed theirs.

It's a mystery to me how they manage to still be eating yet still be talking a lot. I can't seem to do both. For this reason I don't understand why mealtimes are meant to be "social" occasions too, in which talking is expected.

For me it's either/or -- either sit down and talk to me without food involved, or lets eat and just focus on the food and enjoying it. I don't have the skill to do both and so the "chatting over a meal" social convention tends to be torture for me. I'm already a relatively slow eater and I like to savor my food, and I get even slower if expected to chit chat.

It's also a "can't multi-task" thing for me.

Either that, or they simply want to save time and not deal with any answer at all, even a compliment, because they're running around waiting on a lot of different tables.

And yes, as to the OP's question, and your take on it, and like others here are mentioning ... having conversations with people while eating at the same time isn't going to happen ... either the food is going to get cold, or I'll be the last one finished eating.

Yes, I do tip in both situations ...
I'm just extra generous in better situations.

Sometimes I want to talk while eating, sometimes not.

If the food is delicious, for example a fruit cake and hot chocolate, I have trouble holding back from just eating the thing in 2 minutes... some people can have 1 cake and 1 cup of coffee and it will last them over an hour...
It's like self-torture. No delicious food that I want, much superficial talk that I don't want.
I suppose the main problem is that the people that I have cake with are mostly family members that don't really talk about stuff that interests me, and the fact that I usually haven't eaten in a while.

Sometimes I can talk quite a bit while eating (or rather not eating, heh). My friend at uni used to often be quieter than me so 99% of the time he had finished eating his stuff much faster than me.