<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a familiar Saturday scene: a gaggle of well-dressed college-age women out for an evening of downtown dining. Kicking back into my crimson booth seat and letting the night\u2019s gossip waft lazily into my ears, the last thing I want is for anything about me to stand out and ruin this moment. But as with most dining situations I encounter these days, something will stand out: my celiac disease. My fake celiac disease.<\/p>\n
The waiter brings over a basket of dinner rolls. I groan inwardly as the other girls pass around the basket, each taking a roll and sometimes a little pat of butter. They begin to comment on how good the bread is and how hungry they\u2019ve been since we got here. The basket reaches me. It quivers in my hands. I\u2019ve told myself in advance that I will be discreet and calm about declining, but at the last second I lose it and blurt, \u201cSorry, I can\u2019t eat gluten.\u201d<\/p>\n
My face goes beet red. My friends\u2019 faces, on the contrary, light up with sympathy. One of them says, \u201cOh, you must be starving!\u201d Another says, \u201cI\u2019m sorry for talking about how good the bread is. You can\u2019t help that you have an illness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I can,\u201d I protest. \u201cThis is just a fake disease, guys. Seriously. I made it up for attention.\u201d And I did.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOh sure,\u201d my friend Tracy quips. \u201cLike that bread wouldn\u2019t trigger an autoimmune reaction causing degradation of your intestinal lining, a histological change that can be triggered by an almost infinitesimal amount of gluten. And you sure wouldn\u2019t miss work for the next two days due to the gastrointestinal symptoms. Come on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI might get a little headache or something,\u201d I reply. \u201cBut mostly I just eat gluten-free to show others that I am morally superior to them, and to feel special for having my bizarre culinary whims catered to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tracy looks hurt. \u201cHow could you say that about something so serious? Your body creates antibodies to itself when you eat gluten, called tissue trans-glutaminase. If repeated over time, this inflammatory process could cause you to develop infertility, anemia, osteoporosis, and even cancer! I don\u2019t blame you at all for wanting to be careful about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I realize that there\u2019s no bridging the gap between my lived experience of celiac disease and Tracy\u2019s watered down media version, so I shrug and try to change the subject.<\/p>\n
Then the waiter comes back to take our orders. I swore<\/em> before I came that I would order something simple, with no fuss, but my pathological desire to make food service workers break their backs in order to fuel my need for validation wins over. \u201cI\u2019d like to ask about the chicken marsala,\u201d I say. \u201cDoes the sauce contain gluten? If so, is there an alternative sauce you can use? Like, just plain olive oil? And the side of fried onion straws \u2013 could that just be grilled onions so there\u2019s no breading? Also, I don\u2019t like mushrooms. So just plain chicken breasts with olive oil and a side of grilled onions. Got that?\u201d<\/p>\n The waiter smiles and says, \u201cOf course, that\u2019s easy. We always want to make sure our food is safe for those with particular dietary needs.\u201d I curse silently. The night goes on, and my friends share laughs, stories, and camaraderie, being wholly inclusive of me despite my purposefully asinine behavior. But how do you convince someone that absolute necessity is not the only thing that will get a person to make requests that make them look obnoxious? \ufeffThat the true reason people radically change their diet in an expensive and draining way is the simple joy of obnoxiousness? <\/p>\n As any (false) celiac knows, it can be hard to deal with even good friends who do not understand the nature of this fabricated disorder. It\u2019s easy to feel silenced when people who haven\u2019t really been through it insist that they know better than you. I\u2019m sharing my stories so those pretending to suffer from an autoimmune condition know that they are not alone, and that there are those out there willing to work towards a future of greater understanding and awareness of the lack of celiac disease in the adult population.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Things are getting better. Just yesterday \u2013 a full month after the awkward restaurant night – Tracy brought me a gluten-filled Halloween cookie. When I started on my usual shtick about how I can\u2019t eat it, she rolled her eyes and stuffed it in my mouth. I couldn\u2019t have asked for anything more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Nora Helfand Oct. 18, 2013 It\u2019s a familiar Saturday scene: a gaggle of well-dressed college-age women out for an evening of downtown dining. Kicking back into my crimson booth seat and letting the night\u2019s gossip waft lazily into my ears, the last thing I want is for anything about me to stand out and ruin this moment. But as with most dining situations I encounter these days, something will stand out: my celiac disease. My fake celiac disease. The waiter brings over a basket of dinner rolls. I groan inwardly as the other girls pass around the basket, each taking a roll and sometimes a little pat of butter. They begin to comment on how good the bread is and how hungry they\u2019ve been since we got here. The basket reaches me. It quivers in my hands. I\u2019ve told myself in advance that I will be discreet and calm about declining, but at the last second I lose it and blurt, \u201cSorry, I can\u2019t eat gluten.\u201d My face goes beet red. My friends\u2019 faces, on the contrary, light up with sympathy. One of them says, \u201cOh, you must be starving!\u201d Another says, \u201cI\u2019m sorry for talking about how good the bread is. You can\u2019t help that you have an illness.\u201d \u201cBut I can,\u201d I protest. \u201cThis is just a fake disease, guys. Seriously. I made it up for attention.\u201d And I did. \u201cOh sure,\u201d my friend Tracy quips. \u201cLike that bread wouldn\u2019t trigger an autoimmune reaction causing degradation of your intestinal lining, a histological change that can be triggered by an almost infinitesimal amount of gluten. And you sure wouldn\u2019t miss work for the next two days due to the gastrointestinal symptoms. Come on.\u201d \u201cI might get a little headache or something,\u201d I reply. \u201cBut mostly I just eat gluten-free to show others that I am morally superior to them, and to feel special for having my bizarre culinary whims catered to.\u201d Tracy looks hurt. \u201cHow could you say that about something so serious? Your body creates antibodies to itself when you eat gluten, called tissue trans-glutaminase. If repeated over time, this inflammatory process could cause you to develop infertility, anemia, osteoporosis, and even cancer! I don\u2019t blame you at all for wanting to be careful about it.\u201d I realize that there\u2019s no bridging the gap between my lived experience of celiac disease and Tracy\u2019s watered down media version, so I shrug and try to change the subject. Then the waiter comes back to take our orders. I swore before I came that I would order something simple, with no fuss, but my pathological desire to make food service workers break their backs in order to fuel my need for validation wins over. \u201cI\u2019d like to ask about the chicken marsala,\u201d I say. \u201cDoes the sauce contain gluten? If so, is there an alternative sauce you can use? Like, just plain olive oil? And the side of fried onion straws \u2013 could that just be grilled onions so there\u2019s no breading? Also, I don\u2019t like mushrooms. So just plain chicken breasts with olive oil and a side of grilled onions. Got that?\u201d The waiter smiles and says, \u201cOf course, that\u2019s easy. We always want to make sure our food is safe for those with particular dietary needs.\u201d I curse silently. The night goes on, and my friends share laughs, stories, and camaraderie, being wholly inclusive of me despite my purposefully asinine behavior. But how do you convince someone that absolute necessity is not the only thing that will get a person to make requests that make them look obnoxious? \ufeffThat the true reason people radically change their diet in an expensive and draining way is the simple joy of obnoxiousness? As any (false) celiac knows, it can be hard to deal with even good friends who do not understand the nature of this fabricated disorder. It\u2019s easy to feel silenced when people who haven\u2019t really been through it insist that they know better than you. I\u2019m sharing my stories so those pretending to suffer from an autoimmune condition know that they are not alone, and that there are those out there willing to work towards a future of greater understanding and awareness of the lack of celiac disease in the adult population. Things are getting better. Just yesterday \u2013 a full month after the awkward restaurant night – Tracy brought me a gluten-filled Halloween cookie. When I started on my usual shtick about how I can\u2019t eat it, she rolled her eyes and stuffed it in my mouth. I couldn\u2019t have asked for anything more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-komono"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3293,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260\/revisions\/3293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chicagoshadydealer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}