#1420: "How to address travel and eating concerns with a friend with severe food allergies."

JenniferP

January 31

Hello Captain Awkward,

I hope you can help me with the pickle I'm in. My friend has asked me many times to go to France with her. I am hesitant because she has severe dietary restrictions. French cuisine is not kind or friendly to her food intolerances. I'm not sure how to address the issue with her when it comes to dining out. I have tried to talk her out of France and consider other countries but she's very set on it. She does not see the reality of how difficult it will be to eat in France. She is avoidant when it comes to discussing what foods she cannot eat.

I feel bad if I turn her down on traveling in France with her since she has asked so many times now. How can I address my concerns or anxiety? I don't want her to get sick while we travel but I don't want to be resorted to just eating food from a grocery store. Eating separately and then meeting up later isn't an option because she doesn't want to dine alone in a restaurant. Please let me know if you have ideas how I can address the elephant in the room.

Keeping with the theme of bad ideas and ruined vacations this week, I have this radical theory that vacations should be fun and you should only go on them when they would be fun for you. There many people I like way more than I would ever want to travel with, and she might be that friend for you. You are not a bad person if you admit that and proceed accordingly.

So it's time to decide. Do you want to go to France with this person ever, under any circumstances, yes or no? If it helps, flip a coin. Heads you go, tails you don't go. Does the result fill you with more relief or more regret? My advice changes completely based on whether you are trying to wiggle out of this entirely or whether you are looking for ways to make it work.

If you don't want to go at all, then the next time your friend brings up France your script is something like, "Oh, thanks for thinking of me, but I have no interest in that." If she keeps at it, try, "You keep asking, and I keep saying no. I really don't want to hurt your feelings, but also I have no desire to go to France together. Can this be the last time we have this discussion?"

If you're opting out of the trip entirely, it's no longer about negotiating her food requirements, it's about how you don't want to. I know you're reluctant to hurt her feelings, but at a certain point, she wants one thing, you want a different thing, there's no way to make you both happy and no way to make her happy without making yourself unhappy. You are disappointing her by not going, she is stressing you out by continuing to ask, there are no villains here, just incompatibilities. She is free to go to France anytime on her own or to ask someone else.

The more you try to find reasons to justify why this is a logical, objective decision or make it about her food issues, the more you will hurt her feelings, cross over into being ableist and condescending, and set yourself up for failure. The more you make "polite" excuses like scheduling, budget, etc. the more you risk her trying to solve those problems by offering to pay or schedule around you, and then you have to say no again even harder. So don't go, and make it all about you from the start. "I'd really prefer not to." "That doesn't work for me." "You're kind to think of me, but it's not for me, sorry." "I don't think we'd mesh well on a trip like that, so I'm going to decline." "You already know I don't want to, please ask someone else." "No France for me, but if you ever want to try _______, let me know."

If you do want to go and you're looking for ways to make it work, that's an entirely different conversation, and I think there are some underlying principles that you would do well to embrace before you go near a planning conversation.

Wishful thinking and travel do not mix.
France is a big place with multiple cuisines.
Adults are responsible for their own food choices.
Even the most beloved and stalwart companions need some breathing room sometimes.

To apply these principles with your friend, try this:

"Friend, I want to go to France with you in theory, but only if we can agree on some ground rules ahead of time:

First, how do you want to handle eating while we're there? [STOP AND LISTEN TO WHAT SHE SAYS BEFORE YOU REACT. She may have altered her thinking since the last time you talked, but even if she hasn't, give her a chance to lay it out there so you are reacting to the most recent info].

I know you hate talking about this, and that's fine, honestly -- I don't actually need to know all the details because managing them will not be my job! But also, here's what I do need in order to commit to this trip:

1) I need you to have a plan for making sure that you don't get sick or go hungry and so that finding food is not a source of conflict or anxiety. Are you willing to do the legwork to find restaurants that will work for you, make advance reservations, and learn the necessary phrases to explain your needs to servers as we go? I'm happy to weigh in as you gather options, but I am not volunteering to be the manager about this.

2) I know you want to eat and sight-see together whenever possible, but I strongly prefer a mix of planned activities and setting aside times when we can each do our own thing. And that includes times when I might want to go to a restaurant alone. If you insist that we must do everything together, I'm sorry, that won't work for me at all and we'd better just not."

If you don't want to go to France with this person, don't go. If you have certain conditions that must be met to make it an option for you, then spell them out by expressing your own needs and letting her manage her own. If she won't agree to your terms, like she insists that you must do everything together, or if her plan is to have you manage everything about her care and feeding, or if you know from experience that she will not keep any promises she makes, then you'll have fresh, glaring reasons to opt out entirely.

The key is, you have to stop explaining "France" to her or telling her what she can and can eat there. Guidebooks, travel websites, and forums for people with food restrictions all exist. There are places that may be be able to accommodate her depending on what's up, those places have websites and can be contacted in advance, and if she ends up spending three days on the hotel toilet because she threw caution to the wind and yelled "Gluten for the Gluten Gods, and Ice Cream For Their Horses!" (or whatever) that's a) her choice and b) a strong argument for your own room with its own, separate toilet.