(no subject)

[phantym_56]

I was going to write a rant about having babies. It's been on my mind recently, not because anyone's been hassling me about it, just because. (The reason for this is more obvious to some of you than others.) I was going to rant but it can be quite elegantly summed up in a few words:

How old do you have to be before you can say "I don't want children" without someone else saying "You'll change your mind one day"?

I'm twenty-five. I know I like neither babies, toddlers, kids nor teenagers and I know I don't want one of my own.

What does wind me up, and it's going to come up again tomorrow, I can already feel it, is the food issue. I'm beginning to feel more capable of explaining this - a little. So I'm going to go for it, because I know I've alluded to it a few times here.

I have an eating disorder. I don't like the expression and I don't think it fits; unfortunately there's no easy way of explaining it. Let me try explaining it this way. I have recently discovered that I am asexual. I have never had sex but I know I don't want to. There are a great many foods I have never tried and equally, I know I don't want to. I know without tasting them that I do not like them. There are also plenty of foods I have tried. I love the idea of carrots - these crunchy juicy tasty things, like apples but more carrotty but no... carrots just taste dry. Nonetheless, I occasionally am seized with the conviction that they really are as delicious as I hope and then I'm disappointed again. I want to like pizza and pasties - God, they smell good. It hurts to walk past Gregg's and the like, to smell these things and know that I can't eat them. There's no physical reason why not - to the best of my knowledge, and I admit it's untested, I'm not allergic to them. But I don't like them. I did not choose to be like this. Why would anyone choose to be like this?!

There are a handful of foods I enjoy. There are a handful of foods I will tolerate. (There are also foods that I would like to remove from existence. If I was God, I would make it so tuna had never existed. *shudders*) Sometimes people will try to make me list them all and then when they discover one I haven't mentioned they go "Aha! You didn't mention pineapple!" as if it's a game and I enjoy the ritual of "what do you eat?". It's not a game and I want this embarrassing conversation over as quickly as possible. So I'm not going to try and spin it out by being misleading. I'm not going to try and trick you into thinking I don't eat things that I actually do - that's counter-productive. But to try and remember and name the twenty-odd things I eat is hard, especially when I'm a) put on the spot b) feeling like I'm being picked on - I will forget things. I also know that me and my eating is not accountable to anyone and I'm not required to list these twenty things to anyone who orders me to. Here I will.

1) Bread
2) Butter
3) Marmite
4) Cheese
5) Pasta (careful how much. Don't know if it's the pasta or the cheese that tends to upset my system)
6) Chocolate
7) Crisps - ready salted/cheese & onion/salt & vinegar only
8) Plain biscuits
9) Poppadoms
10) Pineapple
11) Crackers (but never with cheese on them)
12) Yoghurts for six-year-olds
13) Apples
14) Bananas (occasionally, and rarely a whole one. Not keen on the texture)
(struggling now...)
15) Grapes (occasionally and very few: don't like the cold juicy feeling when I bite them)
16) Garlic bread
17) Ice cream
18) Milk (but careful how much, slightly lactose intolerant unfortunately. Go figure. Half the stuff I do eat contains milk. If it gets worse I'll starve to death!) Hot chocolate also comes under the "milk" category.
19) Boiled sweets
20) Cornflakes and the like (not with milk on. I like my cereal crunchy, not soggy)
21) Apple & orange juice
22) Apple & blackcurrant/orange squash
23) Cheesy biscuits (not sure whether they don't like me as much as I like them or just that I tend to eat too many. Another food to be careful of)

I hadn't realised how many of my foods had cautions with them... wow. Yes, maybe I've forgotten something. Maybe I'll wake up at 4am and go "I forgot [something]! How could I forget [something]?! I eat it all the time!!" but at the moment I can't think of anything. Special emphasis on the first five items, they are my staple diet. Bread, butter, marmite, cheese, pasta. I firmly believe that I live off Marmite. (Non-UKers, don't google it. It will tell you something like "It's a strong spicy spread made from beef which you either love or hate." I am a Marmite connoisseur. There is no beef. No meat. It's a by-product of brewing and is pure yeast extract. Yes, it's spicy and salty and strong flavoured. Yes, there are a great many people who are in the non-existant grey area between love and hate. Many many people "don't mind it" or "aren't keen on it". I know what other people think of Marmite. When they hear that's all I eat, they make sure I know their opinion of the stuff). When I was living abroad all I ate pretty much was plain baguette, no butter or Marmite and after a few months I got the flu. I know this year I seem to have been ill on and off for months but before that it was absolutely unknown and quite clearly caused by lack of Marmite, which contains life-giving vitamins and minerals and stuff. No, I don't take supplements and I have no intention to. No, this restricted diet doesn't cause me any health problems. I am disgustingly healthy. (Until recently, but I'm writing 2010 off. It doesn't count.) No, I don't get bored with it. If you call me a "fussy eater" I will hit you. I can just about tolerate "picky".

See the mixture of utterly bland, like cornflakes and poppadoms and plain biscuits and bread, and the strong flavours like Marmite, garlic and salt & vinegar. No, there's no pattern to it, is there? No fucking explanation for why I'm like this. Which means instead of a one line answer when the subject comes up, we end up with a discussion that covers all the points detailed above. However, the conversation involves much more accusation from the other party and much more humiliation, stuttering and frustrated from me. I'm learning to reply with the words "Don't ask" rather than attempt to get them to understand. I have long ago lost my sense of humour about the subject. "What if you go to a restaurant?" I don't go to restaurants. Obviously. And if I were to be invited by a gentleman, well, frankly, 1) the food issue is the least of the problems of having me as a girlfriend 2) Whether or not I actually bother trying to explain matters, I'd steer it away from restaurants and onto something less problematic 3) Sorry, but my eating habits are a dealbreaker in a relationship. If you can't accept them, that's it. That was the good thing about Tank - as a vegetarian, he understands food problems and took no interest whatsoever in my ones. And Silver - he's used to it as well. I find I'm actually easier to feed. How many of you have traipsed around a city looking for somewhere to eat and going "No, I don't fancy that" or some variant thereupon? Whereas I will walk into a supermarket, buy a piece of bread and maybe a piece of cheese and that's me satisfied. Very little interruption to my day, and I can go several days without any food if necessary. I'm aware that's not terribly healthy but occasionally it's unavoidable.

I don't generally eat meals. I can't do three meals a day. I can just about manage two but I'm more of a grazer. I'd rather eat little and often than sit down to eat lots three times. The Sundays when we go to the grandparents' can be problematic because I tend to get up later than usual on a Sunday and of course, then I'm hungry so I'm liable to eat breakfast on Sundays. Then someone will have been shopping and I'll have cheese rolls while everyone else has bacon rolls. And then we go to the grandparents' and I'm supposed to eat more rolls. If I remember, I do try to skip lunch on those Sundays. Of course, if they come to our house it's no problem. I simply don't eat in the evening. I'm not anorexic, I'm certainly not bulimic and I know it's frustrating that it's so difficult to understand and label.

If you hassle me about the subject, I will certainly get angry and resentful. If you stand up for me and my eating habits in front of other people I will love you. If you do the second one and then do the first one I will hit you. (Magpie warded off questions for me when I was 18; it was the first time anyone had ever done that and it was wonderful. He then got drunk when I was twenty-one and sided with someone who was hassling me. He's served in Iraq and he's 6'2". I hit him.) However, the internet is a wonderful place where people will say things like "You don't have to answer to anyone" and "It's no one else's business" and I don't have to worry about problems here.

I do have to worry about my Dearly Beloved Boss tomorrow. Judging by what he put me through last year - it's somewhere under my food tag, December 16th 2009 I think, if you want to know what happened there - I may well be in for a second dose of it, especially as we've acquired a couple of new people who don't know the full story yet. That's the reason for writing all this, to help get my thoughts in order. I do apologise if you've actually read this through. I am willing to answer questions but try not to make them dumb ones. Don't ask why, don't ask if I've seen a doctor/nutritionist/etc, don't ask why I'm not dead yet. The answers to these are "I have no idea", "No and have no intention to" and "I have no idea but it's probably the Marmite." And I do not like Freaky Eaters, the BBC3 show in which people like me volunteer to be filmed eating weird restricted diets and to be filmed trying to expand their restricted diets and then get upset when the TV people try to make them eat things they don't want to eat. If you don't want to eat them, don't go on the show.

Oh, and by the way - I will never ever do anything like say "You shouldn't eat that, it's disgusting". Unless it's tuna in which case it's perfectly correct to say it because tuna is the fish of Satan. I will call meat "dead stuff" but that's 1) generally only in front of immediate family 2) a corruption of an Alan Davies routine rather than a reflection of my view on meat. I will not touch meat. I don't mind touching other food, except tomato gloop. Tomatoes, no problem. I can dice and slice and cut tomatoes. I cannot wash up a plate with ketchup on it. See any logic here? Nope, me neither. I'm quite a good cook, all things considered. If someone else will put it in the pan, or if I'm allowed to spend a while using utensils in an awkward way, I can do an excellent full English breakfast, complete with bacon and sausages. I enjoy cooking bacon and sausages and I particularly enjoy frying onions for some reason although obviously they don't go into breakfasts usually. No,  I don't find the smell of bacon appealing. I understand even vegans love the smell of bacon. It does nothing for me. I'm not a bad barbecuer either.

Last thing, I promise. What do I eat for Christmas dinner? Obviously it's not turkey. And I don't eat mince pies. Did you see mince pies on the list? Usually toast. I have been known to use cookie cutters to make Christmas tree-shaped toast. I tried fondue one year but my fondue set was designed for chocolate and the cheese just wouldn't stay melted so it was more frustration than it was worth. I may have had pasta last year but that's troublesome when there's so much cooking to be done; no pans and no free rings on the hob either. Generally toast.

 I need to stop rambling on vaguely food-related stuff and go to bed. Early morning tomorrow.

Comments

[phantym-56.livejournal.com]

I should have thought to ask the internet about this years ago! It genuinely never occurred to me that I wasn't the only one. Thank you!