Woman Who ‘Just Wants a Bite of Yours’ Hasn’t Ordered Her Own Meal Since 2008

BANGOR, Maine — Lorna Fetterly, a 41-year-old dental hygienist, has not ordered her own meal at a restaurant since 2008, surviving instead on what she describes as “just a bite” of whatever her boyfriend, Dale Plattsworth, is having.

“Oh, I’m not hungry,” Fetterly told a server Thursday at a downtown diner, as she has at an estimated 4,100 meals, before eating most of Plattsworth’s club sandwich and all of the pickle.

Plattsworth, 43, a claims adjuster, now orders two entrées every time they eat out: the one he wants and the one she will want a bite of. “She eats the second one, then she has a bite of the first one,” he said. “Last spring I ordered three. She had a bite of three.”

Staff at the diner now bring Fetterly a fork without being asked, and no plate.

Wendell Crumbsby, president of the National Association of Shared Appetizers, said the problem is one of measurement. “‘A bite’ is not a unit,” Crumbsby said. “We’ve tested it. The average bite is 38 percent of the entrée and every one of the fries.”

Fetterly said ordering her own food would defeat the purpose. “Then it’s a whole meal,” she said. “I’m watching what I eat. Mostly I’m watching what he eats.”

For her 40th birthday, Plattsworth booked a steakhouse and asked her, gently, to order anything she wanted. She ordered a water and asked whether his fries would be the curly ones.

Plattsworth has since begun eating dinner in his car before their dates. “Tuesday I was in the parking lot with a burger and I heard a knock on the window,” he said. “She just wanted a bite.”