If You Hate Sharing Food at a Restaurant, This Strategy May Help

For some people, going out to eat with others is a chance to order lots of different foods and then pick and choose from the plates, sharing everything like it’s a buffet. Everyone eats what they want from various dishes, taking bites of this and nibbles of that until the plates are clean and everyone is satiated. Personally, I hate sharing food because I order exactly what I want to eat. 

Someone else eating it with me can screw up my food-to-food ratio, forcing me to end my meal with a bite of something that I didn’t plan on finishing with. I always plan my final bite to be my favorite dish, and if someone takes the last forkful of macaroni and cheese and now my closing taste is that of a green bean, the next bite might be me biting them on their hand. But some people enjoy sharing food. That can also make it more complicated.

Restaurant math can be awkward if there are uneven numbers or hard-to-split dishes

Sharing a pizza is easy. You count the slices and divide by the number of people eating it. As long as there’s an even number of pieces and an even number of people, you’re good. Something like calamari is a challenge because you can’t really count how many pieces there are to make certain everyone is getting an equal amount. And what if I like the tentacles more than the rings, how does that fit into the equation? 

The most logical solution is to whip out a food scale and weigh it, divvying up equal ounces to each hungry person. And what if there are four people, but only three croquettes in an order? Other than someone opting out, the obvious answer is to divide each croquette into fourths so that every person gets three quarters. It’s too much. Besides, the likelihood of having a scale or being willing to precisely slice a croquette is another reason I prefer to not share. 

Dessert is hard — and sometimes gross — to divvy up

Dessert is the most common food “for the table.” It seems that no one ever wants to commit to a whole dessert for themself and sharing it with others alleviates some (completely unnecessary) guilt about having it. It’s also the most difficult to share evenly because it’s very rarely served in a way that makes it easily divisible. If you’re ordering a whole cake, slice that bad boy up and everyone gets an equal slice, but if it’s a solitary wedge, how are we supposed to share that? Put it on a turntable and each person takes a bite, taking turns until it’s gone? And if it has ice cream with it, by the time it gets back to you, it’s soggy and covered with the germs of everyone who ate before you. 

If you want to share a dessert, find something uncomplicated like churros that can be cut into uniform pieces. Of course the simplest thing to do is take my stance and order a dessert for only yourself. If someone insists on tasting it, one bite of yours merits one bite of theirs. Period.

Menus should say how many items are in an order

I propose that all restaurants have multiple options for serving sizes, especially when it comes to appetizers. Three people get three meatballs and four people get four. Or at least post on the menu how many pieces of something there are so we can know in advance how difficult the math will be. Six cheese sticks for three people is third grade level division, but with five people the calculation gets tougher. 

Sure, someone will always be the one who says, “Oh, you can have that last piece,” but having been that person, I know how that resentfulness sticks with you longer than the food sticks with your stomach. Two hours later when my stomach rumbles with hunger, I think, “Why did I do it? What did it get me?”  

They say that sharing is caring, but when it comes to food at a restaurant, all mine is totally fine.