I confess that I am a total pain in any of those "gatherings", be it office party, family thing, friends thing, you know all those foodie events. A vegetarian is "annoying" enough for many people, now I add on a carb-restriction thing, nobody knows what to feed me anymore and they are either mad at me or themselves . I mean hey, I can take care of myself and still enjoy the time, don't worry about me and I swear I won't die of starvation if not being fed constantly in these 2-3 hours, ok?

Anybody have similar experience?

The only time a vegetarian annoyed me was when I invited him to dinner at our home and he didn't tell me that he didn't eat meat. I had prepared a complicated dish with meat in it and had to quickly whip up a vegetarian omelette for him. I would far rather have known in advance as he was a friend. It would have been a much lesser problem.

Yeah I also feel like a real pain sometimes, or actually more a pain when going with a group to a restaurant since so many have their vegetarian selections as pasta and rice type dishes. At group type gatherings I usually try to bring several dishes rather than one if I want to have something to eat there. Or I have been known to bring my own 'meat' to accompany the side dishes there.

Tofi, not inform the host in advance of one's dietary preferences is plain rude!! Shame on that person!

etoiles, you forget that more places ALWAYS offer a yummy vegetarian vegetable dish ---- Fries I also offer to bring my stuff when I go to some parties, but some people get seriously offended, taking that as an insult for their abilities to incorporate a mega variety of dishes. I had the wife of my boss literally scream "I can make this REALLY decent tofu curry..." and I was like "yeah yeah sure sure.....".

yeah fries I would eat if I could get away with that but the weight has been coming off so slowly I am in no position now to cheat.

Most places do offer salads but you know sometimes you are just not in a salad mood.