Five Reasons NOT to Offer Sympathy for A Gluten Free Guest

Do you ever go to a dinner party at the house of a family or friend who has known that you’re on the GF diet for years and when there’s a dish you can’t eat the host says, as though he/she just remembered, “Oh, sorry – you can’t eat this!” Then they offer you sympathy, which only makes you feel worse.

This has happened to me a number of times. From my own experience, I believe sympathy for a person on a special diet should be downplayed or, better yet, omitted. They don’t need it, for one thing, but also it is annoying and even more annoying when the host should have remembered that they could have made the dish gluten free. 

 Five Reasons to Drop the Sympathy for a Gluten Free Guest

1.       There are ways to make almost every dish gluten free, so although they may miss out on a certain dish at that meal, they can make it themselves later.

2.       They may feel like you could have made the dinner gluten free so that they could eat every dish if you’d tried.

3.       They probably already feel upset about not being able to eat everything. Offering sympathy will remind them of what they are missing, like opening an old wound.

4.       They might be tempted to ‘cheat’ to make you feel less bad about forgetting.

5.       They may feel embarrassed talking about their dietary restrictions if there are other guests.

Have any of you experienced an amount of sympathy over your GF diet that you're uncomfortable with? Please leave comments below.