Hi folks,

I ´d like to share a story from a few weeks ago... just to get it off my chest, I guess, and also because I had been feeling a bit shaken confidence-wise by it and am hoping to hear from poeple who understand.

I was dating a guy in January and early February. I am on the move a lot so the whole relationship thing unfortunately has been very difficult (I am more the longterm type of person, can ´t see the point in short term things), so I was happy I had met somebody who I thought was promising.

However, he just didn ´t get the food thing I am doing. I tried to explain at the beginning but it seems like it didn ´t reach him, and he was trying to tell me he thought I was, basically, just being something between neurotic and nuts. There are two incidences that made me feel like he didn ´t take my nutrition beliefs seriously, which in turn made me feel like he wasn´t taken ME seriously:

1) When we ate out and I was going for what was the best option for me, instructing the waiters (the country I am in is not the easiest in the aspect of wholemeal and vegetarian foods), he tried to get me to eat French Fries off his plate. And I mean, almost bullied me into it - just wouldn´t let off until I, very unnerved, took one. He was trying to make me see "that nothing happens to you when you eat this".

2) In the supermarket, when he was suposed to cook for me one day, although I told him I don ´t eat white pasta, he still bought it (there is no brown pasta here). Then when I told him I wouldn´t eat it he shrugged his shoulders as if saying "suit yourself". We ended up not spending that afternoon together, as I had shortly afterwards thrown a tantrum and stormed off.

Looking back now, a good month later, I realized two things:

1) As for the supermarket incident, I was in victim mode. I was feeling unloved (and yeah, I was). Instead of buying brown rice (which was the only option available for a brown) and cooking something for myself, then accompanying him with his pasta dish, I felt done to and ran away. By the time we were grocery shopping in the supermarket, it was past 4pm and I hadn´t eaten lunch, which partly explained why I had a meltdown shortly afterwards. He told me to stop acting like a child (I was indeed acting like a child, lol) and made a rude remark about my "stupid eating patterns", to which I spat back "it´s YOU who has stupid eating patterns" (you go, Andrea, great comeback!) and after that there wasn´t all that much communication anymore for the day. Had I respected my lunch time and taken care of myself, I wouldn ´t have been so unstable. I might have been able to explain to him, again and in more detail perhaps, why I am eating the way I do. I might have provided for myself instead of relying on him and then blaming him when he didn ´t accomodate me. When my food is off, I am unrecognizable to myself sometimes, and well, I can understand how that wouldn ´t be very appealing to someone new (or old, in that case).

2) In our break-up talk a few days later (are you really surprised?) he said as one of the main reasons that I am "too much drama" and he couldn´t handle my mood swings and that he thought me "too rigid with (my) food which transcends into other life areas as well" (basically saying I am a no-fun person... I don ´t drink whereas he drinks almost daily. He said that the thought of "never being able to share a glass of wine with (me)" just turned him off as it was such a lifestyle factor for him).

I did brood over this conversation in the next week or so after that. When I told him my moods that day were caused by not feeling accepted/respected and by being "hangry" (hungry+angry; food being off) I don t think he really bought it. After he had left I was angry at myself and sad and disturbed, thinking, "can ´t I just be more normal? Maybe I would have an easier time dating and keeping people by my side if I were less difficult with food... I could have a glass of wine, couldn ´t I? I could eat ice cream because that is the sociable, normal, easy thing to do?!" and I felt ashamed. Ashamed because I had been acting like a five year old that didn ´t get a treat at the suprmarket. Ashamed because maybe I really was too "rigid", "un-fun", obsessed with my food choices. Ashamed because I was weird and unloveable - in someone else ´s eyes.

Well, it is a month later and I am back on track. It ´s not me, it ´s him is what I now believe... These are the three things I have taken from this episode (yeah, I am a numbering-person):

1. I am the only one responsible for taking care of myself - making sure I get the right food at the right time. Thankfully, I can make my own choices always, and I know myself and know what works and what doesn ´t. If I don ´t respect myself in this way, can I really expect someone else to do so?

2. I am special indeed, both with my food convictions and my "rigidness" in applying them. To some, this might seems restrictive and "funless", but what it really is to me is looking out for myself and standing up for myself and taking care of myself and being true to myself.

3. I really only want to be with someone who respects my needs and beliefs and doesn ´t try to change me against my will. Or change me at all. I have wonderful people in my life who accept my food issues and accomodate them without making a fuss around them or giving me the impression they think I am weird.