We all have been in those situations when we are a bit afraid of ordering food, the fear of ordering food is real.
This fear, like many other fears, is not a binary thing but is rather a scale which means that some people are terrified of ordering food while others are not at all or just a bit.
It is understandable, having in mind that you have to interact with someone you don’t know. If we talk about ordering by phone or in person, when it comes to ordering food by an app, things get much more easier for most people.
What is the fear of ordering food, and why it exists?
Fear of ordering food comes from social anxiety combined a bit with performance anxiety since we have to interact with someone and do this task well otherwise, you can feel bad or incapable of doing this thing that seems so simple to others.
But as we said, ordering food is not as easy as it might look like. Many times we don’t know exactly what we want, we need some help, or some unexpected ingredient might make us change our mind. In those situations, you should make a decision pretty fast since you don’t want to keep the other person busy for several minutes until you decide even if you can do it.
And choosing the food you want or understanding the menu is not something you can do in seconds. That is why we often end up with something we don’t like if the first option wasn’t available as we wanted it, which makes us afraid when we order food next time.
Even if trying to overcome this fear might imply doing it so we can get used to it, having bad experiences when ordering food might make us even more afraid, so it’s not as easy to get rid of this fear.
Fear of ordering food by phone
The fear of ordering food by phone for many people is much bigger than ordering food in person. I briefly discussed this in the article about why introverts hate phone calls. But the idea is that we are not used anymore with phone calls, and a phone call conversation has some downsides that an in-person conversation has not.
Especially when you have to think about something, it is much weirder by phone compared to in person. That is because the pauses you make during phone conversations feel longer because the other person doesn’t know what you are thinking, while in person, they will notice that due to your body language.
So one of the best solutions when ordering food by phone is to say that you are thinking about your decision, like”let me think 1 minute” or “give me a few seconds”. The thing that we don’t have time to think about our decision as much as we like and the person waiting for us doesn’t have patience is the most inconvenient thing when we order food by phone.
Fear of ordering food in person.
The fear of ordering food in person is not as big as the fear of ordering food by phone, but you still have to interact with someone you don’t know.
When it comes to ordering food in person, we feel like we have to know exactly what we want otherwise, we annoy the person that takes our order. Be it a fast food order, or a restaurant one, we feel that other people know what they want, and we should also know.
In reality, it often happens to need more clarifications or change your mind when you talk with the waiter or hear someone else ordering something you are interested in.
In-person ordering has the downside of seeing the other person, what I mean by that is that you see if they are not in the mood to take your order or they are sad or angry and so on, which can distract, intimidate or discourage you when ordering food.
Ordering food by apps
By far the easiest way of ordering food, but it can be overwhelming to decide what you want since you have so many options all at the same time, so you might end up with something you don’t really like.
This can make you afraid of ordering food by an app, however, this rarely happens since we can live with a bad decision if no one else was involved in this decision.
How to overcome the fear of ordering food?
Practice is the best thing you can do, but to practice ordering food, you must encourage yourself to make the first order.
So, when it comes to the first order online or in person, it would help a lot to always say what you really want, I don’t mean what food but what you think. If you need more time to think, just say that, if you need a recommendation, ask the person that is serving you for one.
It is more awkward to say nothing and feel pressured than to say that you need more time or an extra opinion.
We feel like we have to make a good impression when we order food and be confident, while in reality, the person that is taking our order doesn’t care at all about that, and they will not remember that you order the food not as confident. So, don’t worry about how you look in front of them or the other customers if you need more time or extra details.
Read Also: Do Introverts Hate Parties?
Conclusion
The fear of ordering food is real and is the most obvious when ordering food by phone, but it is not limited to that.
Don’t put as much pressure on you when you order food and everything should be fine, the other person hears a lot of not-so-confident clients, so they will not notice if you made the perfect order or not.
