This Makes Less Sense Than Usual

Some days, I order lunch I don’t want just to prove somebody wrong

You just can't let other people have their little victory, can you?  

I don't want to feed into people's stereotypes about me.  Also, one of these is offensive.   

So, I've been working at the same collection of buildings for several years now.  It's nice to have that level of stability, even if it might get a little boring and repetitive on occasion.  The fact that I'm never actually bored at work helps with that a little bit, I suppose, but that's beside the point.  When you work in the same place for a long time, you get to know the local lunch places...unless you're one of those types that has time to pack your own lunch in the morning and bring it with you in one of those little squishy lunch bags that you have to put your name on or else somebody's going to jack it from the fridge before you get to enjoy it because your coworkers are jerks.  I'm not one of them...anymore.  

Around here, there are fairly few places to go for lunch.  Mostly because I don't usually have an awful lot of time to find lunch and then eat it before my next meeting starts.  So, most days, I'm limited in my options.  That's the bad news, but at least the places that I'm limited to are pretty decent.  There's a deli across the street, and a Chinese restaurant next to the deli, and a totally decent barbecue place up the road...and not a whole heck of a lot else.  Oh yeah, the cafeteria sucks here, and they just raised the prices on everything so forget those people.  

Over time, the people who run the deli and the Chinese restaurant and the barbecue place have come to recognize me, since I'm a regular.  With that, they've come to also know my tendencies, and they try to use that information to predict what I'm going to have for lunch.  

I don't like this.  

In the case of the Chinese restaurant, it's a little offensive, though.  Some time ago, there was another engineer who used to work here who would often come with me to the Chinese place.  He would invariably order the exact same thing every time.  I prefer a little variety, but I certainly have my favorites.  His lone order and my favorites did not overlap.  It should also be mentioned here that the other engineer looks nothing like me.  Shortly after the other engineer moved away, the wife of the owner would assume that for my lunch, I wanted the one thing that the other guy always ordered, and would greet me into the restaurant with "General Tso Chicken?" instead of "Hello."  I don't want General Tso Chicken...I never get General Tso Chicken, yet I'm mistaken for General Tso Chicken Guy.  I seem to disappoint her every time I order something else.  

The guy who owns the deli thinks I only eat the buffalo chicken sandwich, and the cashier at the barbecue place always wants to get my macaroni salad side dish even if I didn't order it.  

Whenever these assumptions are made, I feel obligated to go against them.  Even if I wanted buffalo chicken or a side of macaroni salad (their macaroni salad is amazing, incidentally), I refuse to order it if it's presumed that I was going to order it.  I don't know why I do this.