French restaurants don't like vegetarians

I don't eat out much or ever really if I am to be completely honest. I'd love to blame that on my current dietary restrictions but the real truth is it's because I am a very fussy vegetarian and now with my current diet restrictions, even though I am willing to try more things, I am still not left with a lot of options. Any way much as I would like to not really go through the whole restaurant experience because nothing makes me feel socially awkward like having to explain to a waitress what I can't have, that's not always an option.
It was my boyfriends birthday over the weekend and to celebrate he wanted me and a few of his close friends to go for dinner in one of the posher French restaurants in town. I'd have preferred to have skipped it because trying to find something to eat out and then trying not to look like a weirdo in front of everyone isn't really my idea of a good night out. Naturally I suppressed this rather selfish impulse and instead took to the internet to scrutinize their menu as though I was studying for a test. 

 This is the difficulty when I am a pain in the ass and I prefer food I cook myself where as my boyfriend likes nothing better than a nice meal out. So far we have compromised and have never actually been out to dinner but have managed lunch a few times.  Anyway as I was going through their menu trying to find out in advance what I was going to be able to eat ( to save myself the mortification of ordering off menu, I would rather order something I wouldn't eat and move it around my plate to make it look as though I had than do this)
I realized that French restaurants do not favour vegetarians. They have no time for our nonsense and probably wish that we would just eat meat or starve. I was very glad that I had taken to eating fish ( however reluctantly I had gone about it) because otherwise I would have had to pay a lot of money for food I couldn't ( or wouldn't) eat and that would have made me very sad indeed. Now before you accuse me of looking at one menu and tarring them all with the same french brush, I will let you know this is not the only research I've done on the matter. my house mate recently gifted me two vouchers for another French restaurant that he was given at work and will never use so I checked out their menu and what do you know, exact same story. Meat coming out their ears, one or two fish options and if you don't like those then you can fuck off. Only said more delicately and in French so even though I understand the message, it's harder to be properly offended.

 Personally, having grown up in a household without meat where every thing had a vegetarian version that didn't involve anything weird like quorn, I think French restaurants could stand to be a little more welcoming to those of my ilk who don't eat fish. Perhaps I just feel this strongly because up until very recently I would have required a gun to my head to even consider a fish dish. Also I am not one to stand for food discrimination, if that can really be called a thing.

 In case you were wondering, the meal went ahead and I survived it as though I was the sort of normal person who regularly eats out and no one suspected I was an imposter in this fine upstanding restaurant. I did only eat the main course which fortunately they had not. In gussied up too much and it tasted much like the hake I would steam in my own oven only much more expensive. We got a pre starter or amuse bouche as they call it which was some sort of salmon mouse, I didn't even try it because just, No ! and my boyfriend happily had two. Then I was all brave with the salad which sounded all right but that I had mostly ordered because the soup of the day was mushroom which is rank. Instead I ended up with a goats cheese salad and after putting quite a large bit in my mouth ( and then realizing that this place was much too posh for me to spit it out, had to go through with swallowing it) I realised that I don't like goats cheese at all. To be fair I had always suspected this was the case but given the night that was in it, I said I'd give it a fair chance. I passed that over to my boyfriend as well, sure he needed something to put on the extra portion of bread I'd passed his way.
Once we got to the main course I was actually hungry so I ate all the fish but didn't think much of the smushed sweet potato that accompanied it. About a year after we finished that, they brought us out deserts and I pushed the trio of mini cakes towards my boyfriend as a nice accompaniment to the cheese plate he'd chosen for himself.

 I left pleased that I'd successfully eaten in a fancy restaurant and now imbued with the knowledge that I could eat in a French restaurant again if I wanted to or had to but I wouldn't go so far as to say I'd actually look forward to another french meal. After all there's only so much fish a girl wants to eat ( that's not very much fish at all )

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