We all have them: the tiny eating habits that can turn a perfectly attractive person into someone you suddenly need to emotionally distance yourself from.
Maybe they chew with their mouth open. Cut a burger with a knife and fork. Or order chips for the table and then mysteriously become allergic to sharing them. Perhaps, most unforgivably, they take one bite of a burger and somehow manage to get sauce on their forehead.
You might tell yourself you’re not judging. You’re simply… observing.
New research suggests Australians are doing a lot more of that observing than we realise – particularly when it comes to dating.
According to national research commissioned by Betty’s Burgers, 37% of Australians say table manners have played a role in judging – or being judged on – a date. That means more than one in three of us have either mentally marked someone down for the way they eat, or suspected that our own dining habits were being scrutinised across the table.
And women appear particularly likely to be holding the scorecard. Seventeen per cent of women admit they have judged a date based on their eating habits.
The really interesting part? We may not be nearly as good at recognising when we’re being judged as we are at doing the judging.
While 15% of Australians admit they have judged a date’s eating habits, just 10% believe they have been judged themselves.
Which raises an awkward possibility: perhaps your date is absolutely noticing the way you’re eating. You just don’t know it.
So, what exactly are we judging?
It probably isn’t as simple as whether someone knows which fork to use.
Eating is surprisingly revealing. Unlike a conversation, where we can carefully choose what to say, the way we eat tends to be much more instinctive. Some people approach food like a construction project, carefully assembling every bite. Others abandon all structural integrity somewhere around the first mouthful.
And apparently, Australia is almost perfectly divided between the two.
The research found 38% of Australians describe themselves as “perfect bite” eaters, carefully managing their food, sauce and toppings to keep every mouthful neat and controlled.
Meanwhile, 39% embrace the mess.
These are the people who aren’t interested in structural integrity. The burger is coming apart? Fine. Sauce on the fingers? Part of the experience. Pickle has escaped? They’ll deal with it later.
In other words, we’re basically split down the middle between “I have this under control” and “well, it’s already happened now.”
And while neither approach is objectively better, you can probably already picture which one would make you feel more comfortable across a first-date table.
Because food says a lot about us
There is something strangely intimate about watching someone eat.
You see whether they’re relaxed or rigid. Whether they share. Rush. Take enormous bites or meticulously nibble around the edges. And, it they are prepared to order the gloriously messy thing on the menu or choose the safest possible option because they don’t want to spend the evening wearing it.
And on a first date, when you’re already subconsciously gathering evidence about another person, those little details can suddenly feel much more significant than they probably deserve.
A person who carefully wipes every trace of sauce from their hands might strike one person as polished and another as uptight.
Someone who happily attacks a burger with both hands might seem carefree to one date and completely feral to another.
The food hasn’t changed. The interpretation has.
Which is perhaps why table manners have survived as a dating litmus test long after most of us stopped caring about the traditional rules of formal dining.
Nobody is necessarily checking whether you know which glass is yours. They might, however, be quietly deciding what your behaviour around a plate says about you.
And then social media got involved
Our relationship with food has become even more complicated thanks to social media.
The research found 49% of Australians say social media has genuinely changed the way they eat, while 29% have ordered a menu item purely because they saw it online.
That’s a fairly significant shift.
We’re no longer simply deciding what to eat based on what we’re hungry for. We’re increasingly influenced by what looks good on camera, what everyone else seems to be eating and what might make a particularly satisfying TikTok, Instagram Story or close-up video.
Which might also explain why messy eating has become such a visual phenomenon.
There is something inherently satisfying about watching a burger collapse, sauce drizzle down the sides and someone take a wildly impractical bite. The mess is the point. It looks indulgent, immediate and – importantly – nothing like the carefully styled food photography we’ve been served for years.
Food has become entertainment.
And the way we eat it has become part of that entertainment too.
So… should you worry about your next date?
Probably not.
Unless you are the person who eats someone else’s fries without asking. In which case, yes. There are consequences.
The more interesting takeaway is that our food habits may tell a date something about us – even when we don’t intend them to.
And perhaps that’s why the idea of the “perfect” way to eat is becoming increasingly irrelevant. There are the neat eaters, the messy eaters, the people who photograph every course and the people who start eating before the plate has properly landed on the table.
Betty’s Burgers has even leaned into the divide with its new Drizzler, a crispy chicken burger designed to work for both camps – whether you approach it with precision or accept that things are about to get messy.
Because perhaps the real dating lesson here isn’t to perfect your table manners before your next dinner date.
It’s to find someone who doesn’t mind when the sauce gets everywhere.
Preferably someone who will still let you have the last chip.
