The silence of getting food first

Why do we torture ourselves at dinner

Sarah stared at her plate of steamed pasta while her friend’s order was still stuck somewhere in the restaurant kitchen.

Internal debate is fierce: Eat now, risk looking rude, or wait, to turn her Carbonara into a condensing chaos. She chose torture-waited until she arrived fifteen minutes after her friend’s meal.

New research shows that Sarah is not alone in this unique form of dining self-punishment. A comprehensive study involving nearly 2,000 participants in six experiments showed that people have been thinking that they should wait for others to receive food before eating, even if these people don’t expect their dining partner to show such constraints.

The psychology behind waiting

The research team, led by Professor Irene Scopelliti of the University of Tilburg Bayes Business School and colleagues, discovered what they called “self-difference” in dining expectations. When participants first thought about receiving food, they strongly felt that they should wait. But when they imagine their dining partner serving first, they feel more relaxed with that person starting to eat immediately.

“The decision to start eating food in the company of others is a very common dilemma,” explained the study’s co-author Professor Janina Steinmetz. “The compliance of normatives points out that we wait until all food starts until it starts, ignoring that we feel rude and neglect of us.”

The researchers found that this pattern was correct regardless of whether participants were dining with friends or acquaintances, whether they were asked what people should “should” do, rather than what they “will” do in practice.

Why do we overestimate our discomfort

The root of this dietary dilemma is that we have limited opportunities for others’ internal experiences. When you are the one who cools on a plate, you will feel introverted, every social awkward moment and every benefit of considerate. But you can’t get the same psychological experience in your dining partner.

This study shows that people expect to feel much better when they wait for themselves than others feel in the same situation. They also expect to eat much worse first than others will encounter.

“We can feel our internal discomfort, our inner gui and considerate positive feelings, but we don’t have full access to what others are experiencing internally,” Professor Scopelliti noted. “So, while we may feel very bad about eating before someone else eats food, we don’t think others will feel strongly about it.”

Failed interventions

Recognizing this psychological asymmetry, the researchers tested two potential solutions. First, they asked some participants to explicitly consider their dining partner’s perspectives in order to imagine the other person’s thoughts and feelings. This practice of view only slightly reduces self-difference and does not eliminate it.

Even more surprisingly, the self-difference remained when the researchers told participants that their dining partner explicitly encouraged them to start eating. People still think that even if they explicitly allow to start, they should wait more than others would expect.

Key findings that challenge common assumptions

This study reveals several counterintuitive patterns:

• 91% of people report expecting to wait for others in their culture
• People always underestimate others’ concerns about catering etiquette violations
• First of all, the psychological discomfort of diet is largely internal and invisible to the observer.
• Even explicit encouragement to undermine norms will not eliminate our internal resistance

These findings challenge the assumption that social norms operate symmetrically. While we might think that everyone is bound by dining etiquette, the reality is more complicated.

The meaning of the real world

The research’s insights go far beyond academic curiosity. Professor Steinmetz pointed out that if the quality of food depends on the temperature, then waiting can really reduce the dining experience. “People will wait for politeness, but if the quality of the food depends on factors such as temperature, it may not taste that good when they finally start eating.”

Researchers believe that restaurants can serve all members of the party at the same time as possible, thereby improving customer satisfaction. These findings also apply to any service environment where people receive items at different times within the group, catering to family gatherings from the office.

The next time you find yourself in Sarah’s situation, remember that your dining partner may have a much lower idea than you would start eating. Your internal pain for seemingly impolite can cause more pain than the supposed rudeness itself.

As the researchers concluded, this is not just polite, but recognizing that we systematically underestimate the extent to which we experience others’ internal emotional experiences, a pattern that goes far beyond the dining table and becomes a wider social dynamic and interpersonal relationship.

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