Internet Backs Man Eating Away From Girlfriend Who Demands 'First Bite'

A man has taken extreme action to combat his girlfriend's annoying habit of insisting she have the first bite of any food he brings home.

Everyone has their own annoying quirks, they just don't always realize it. Living with someone, especially a partner, can often bring these idiosyncrasies into sharp focus.

In a post shared to Reddit's "Am I The 'A**hole?' subreddit which has earned over 14,000 upvotes, a man explained that he has been living with his partner for the past six months and "overall" they have a "great relationship."

The only real problem they have concerns food.

"Since I do shift work I'm generally off the clock at around 11 A.M.," he writes. "Then being too tired to cook, I'll hit up a burger joint for a cheeseburger and some fries."

The issue arises the minute he gets through the door from work.

"My girlfriend always wants to have exactly one bite, exclusively the first bite, of every item I order," he explains.

The man said he has tried to combat the issue "by contacting her on my way to the restaurant asking if she wanted something," yet her answer is always "no."

Despite this, he said that without fail, when he gets home, she will immediately make a "beeline" for whatever he is eating and ask for the first bite. "I've asked if I could just leave a little at the end. No, she wants the first bite," he said. "I've pleaded with her to just let me buy her food. No, she doesn't want to eat that much."

He continues: "I've tried ordering a bit more and letting her polish off the whole burger. No, she'll turn every item into a sampler platter and then throw away the food I bought for her after the first bite if I don't eat it."

As a result of her "bizarre" habit, the man said he recently resorted to "eating in my car and discretely disposing of the wrappers" before telling her he simply "wasn't hungry" after work. That worked fine, for a while. But then she discovered "a garbage bag full of fast food wrappers" and is now "furious" at her partner for "lying."

While many were sympathetic to the man's plight, they felt he was wrong to hide the issue. PeteyPorkChops urged him to "stop hiding." He wrote: "Tell her if she wants food you'll buy it for her, but her having to have the first bite of anything you eat is over now. If she wants to be mad over it let her be mad."

Sportingdicksgoods agreed. "Better to be honest but draw a hard line NO to any sharing" they said. "If she wants something, she has to request her own item. I don't let anyone make me feel bad for being unwilling to share my food."

Pcnauta suspected there was more to the "bizarre" situation than meets the eye. "All I can think of is that she needs to show either control and/or ownership over his food," they commented. "I wonder what would happen if he came in with just one bite taken out of everything."

Saucynoodlelover was similarly suspicious of the girlfriend's motives. "Expecting and demanding a first bite of your partner's hamburger when you're not eating and when you could have had your own smacks of territory marking," they said.

Iamthin1 meanwhile urged the man to "share on your own terms."

"She probably started doing this as something cute and endearing, but now it's a real problem," they wrote."This isn't like stealing a fry while you're already eating. This is saying you can't eat until she does, no matter what."

Noblestromana, however, thought that it could be down to a diet or possibly an eating disorder. "My assumption was that she wants to eat fast food but (for whatever reason) she avoids and just uses the 'first bite' thing as a way to sort of cheat the system while still having a taste," they wrote.

Though the man was urged to stand up for himself and be truthful, he wouldn't be the first person in a relationship to tell a lie in order to protect their partner's feelings.

In fact, a study from the American Psychological Association estimates that married couples lie to each other in about 10 percent of all interactions while unmarried couples do so in 30 percent.

Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment.

The incident comes just a few weeks after a father and husband confessed to secretly eating cake in his car in order to make sure his wife and kids did not steal it.

Another man, meanwhile, landed himself in trouble with his wife after eating an entire birthday cake to himself in the space of just a day.