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By Maria Morava
Relationships Reporter
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A well-balanced meal can mean many things—at least, according to the internet.
A video posted on TikTok by the user @emilypaygee has gone viral after showing the wildly different meals the poster and her partner prepared for lunch. The contrast between the poster's meal prep and her partner's ad hoc cooking has amused social media users—with the video, posted on May 20, receiving more than 379,000 views and 25,000 likes.
"My lunch prep versus my partner's lunch prep," she captioned the video, adding, "Can't forget the ketchup of course."
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The video shows the poster moving the camera past her planned lunch, an empty chopping board and a cookbook open to a wholesome-looking recipe to her partner's lunch: refrigerated cocktail sausages arranged on a tortilla.
In the comments section, one user remarked on the brief glance viewers got of the poster's partner, writing, "He looks so pleased with himself."
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Other users chimed in with their interpretations of the disparity, with some saying they made either meal depending on the circumstances of their week.
"I am you on Monday and him by Friday," a commenter wrote.
Another added, "This is a visual representation of both sides of my personality!"
Newsweek has contacted @emilypaygee for comment via TikTok.
Several commenters also mentioned the term "girl dinner," which was popularized on the video-sharing platform in 2023.
What Is 'Girl Dinner'?
After originating on TikTok, the term "girl dinner" took over the internet last year. As defined by Dictionary.com, it refers to a "meal typically consisting of snacks, side dishes and small portions of (often randomly assembled) foods."
With an emphasis on "small," "girl dinner" became a way for women to showcase their low-effort, low-volume meals without judgment—and now even with solidarity.
While @emilypaygee's video seems to show a role reversal when it comes to "girl dinner," there may be an entirely new category for meals like her partner's sausage wrap. An article in GQ explored the inverse of "girl dinner," which it called "husband meal"—the "go-to dinner a man eats when his spouse or significant other is away and he's home alone." The "husband meal" tends to go for the excessive, the sloppy and the protein-laden.
These phenomena likely do not fall squarely along gendered lines. The TikToker herself said in a comment that her partner's cocktail sausage wrap was indeed "really good."
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