My nephew was an incredibly picky eater when he was young; his parents coddled him and he lived on a diet of chicken fingers and pizza bagels, literally. When he was 10, my friends and I took him to Disney World, and for the first few days, that’s all he ate, refusing anything else. We finally challenged him to try escargot, which he did, on a dare. He said he didn’t like it, “because it’s overcooked and is too heavy on the parsley”. That was the gateway. He started trying stuff everywhere. Now he’ll eat anything, just a few years later. Pickiness is a choice. You can try stuff. Be open minded with food! It’s fun!
To be fair though, escargot is largely a “butter delivery device” 
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I once went for sushi with a co-worker who bragged that she used to work at a sushi place “so she knew how to order”, which sounded good. She actually wrote her order out and handed it to the waiter; it included the exact thickness each piece of fish should be cut to, the temperature of the rice, and the ratio of rice to tobiko. She sent the sushi back three times. After the third time, the chef came out, knife in hand, and said “who the fuck do you think you are, lady?” and kicked us out.
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Jeezus, what the hell is that thing??? How ‘bout a friggin’ trigger warning! (or at least directions on how to prepare so I can freak the kids out the same way I just lost my shit…) 
I also will eat anything, and have often had to train myself. It’s the method I use with the kids too, they just have to try stuff when it’s given to them. Proud of my kids for their love of most green vegetable. Still working on olives and stinky cheese with them.
I also think some parents get a bad rap for (some)picky eaters. Yes, there’s the parental faux pas of catering to their every wish, but some pickiness in kids is just a biological imperative, yes? As with all, it’s a matter of degrees to be sure. Also as always, the good sir Louis also has something to say about this:
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Oh totally, to me, escargot is an excuse to eat garlicky butter. I have no idea what snails by themselves taste like! I was just kind of stunned to hear a 10 yr old weaned on chicken fingers talking like a restaurant reviewer. That’s when I knew he’d be OK
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I did once see a recipe for snails that added more and more ingredients and then said “just before serving, remove snails”. I’m not sure if it was a joke or not.
…however…
Until we moved a few years back we had a walled garden (limestone walls) that bred huge snails like you wouldn’t believe. We did not use fertilisers or insecticides. Every year the “slow food” people came and removed them for us before serving them up at the local food festival.
I still slightly miss my days as a farmer on a very small scale. And I could never bring myself to eat our own snails.
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I didn’t know enough Chinese to even ask, and the group I was with just described it as “FISH!!”. The entire ceremony was fantastic, the restaurant
brought the entire four foot long fish to our table, let us look and inspect it, then took it to the kitchen where it was cooked (braised) and portioned out.
When it was raw it looked vaguely like a coelacanth.
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Oh believe me, I’m a veritable gourmand compared to how I was as a child because I eventually figured out that trying new things wasn’t going to cause lasting trauma. Back then I wouldn’t even consider eating a lot of things I’ve since learned to enjoy. I generally prefer strongly seasoned food (as long as it doesn’t involve fennel), so this isn’t a “I only eat white bread, unsauced noodles, and plain cheese pizza because I am afraid of everything else” situation. The things most likely to trip me up are blandness, temperature (I can’t stand cold meat, including lunchmeat on sandwiches), and texture (no savory purees or blended soups, ever… I have tried and tried, I swear).
My real problem for functioning in society is more that if I start eating something and don’t like it, I cannot physically force myself to eat it no matter how polite I want to be. Several bites in, my throat muscles suddenly refuse to function for swallowing purposes, and if I persist beyond that, I will start gagging in a humiliating fashion. I’ve learned this time and again, to the point that every social meal that involves food in the “I don’t know if I like this or not” category requires trying to gauge whether it will be more awkward for me to take an embarrassingly tiny portion to ensure I will be able to consume all of it, or to take a normal-sized portion and risk having to leave most of it on my plate. I sometimes wonder what would happen to me in a post-apocalyptic wasteland situation… I’d probably starve to death pretty quickly.
But again, I’d never complain or send food back unless it was a “this is not what I ordered at all, in fact it is a totally different menu item” situation so ultimately my eating habits aren’t relevant to the original topic.
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heh heh hee… the slow food people came after your snails… thas funneh
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Well that’s what I’m trying to get at you stick with the stuff you know you like, the safe space. Shared appetizer portions of stuff you know you don’t (or makes you gag), or try some off the plate of a more adventurous companion. Most of these sorts of problems are (in my experience) a result of texture or routine [food aversions][1]. And exposure is the only way to get over either. And its not always successful. I still hate (HATE) broccoli. But I can eat it without gagging loudly now.
Otherwise this all sort of sounds like what your doing anyway. Whatever anxiety you feel about these things is probably driven mostly by your own perceptions of your behavior. And its probably reinforcing and magnifying the effects. By virtue of being willing to try things somewhat regularly people aren’t going to perceive you as picky or weird. Just as a person with likes, dislikes, and aversions to certain foods and textures. Everyone has them, maybe you have more than others. But a simple “let me try some of that” taking one bite followed by “yeah that’s not my thing” is usually enough to diffuse the whole situation. So it doesn’t sound like your all that picky of an eater. Just some one with some food issues.
IN OTHER PICKY EATER NEWS.
I knew a girl who would not eat anything that had been browned. She would claim it was burnt and send it back if it wasn’t perfectly grey/white/blonde. This was especially weird because she demanded that all meat be cooked well beyond well done, and insisted everything be “crispy”. Watching her eat a steak was a disaster. She’d send it back 3 times, then end up cutting the exterior surface off the meat to get at the un-seared interior. IIRC she mostly subsisted on rice pudding, which is weird because she wouldn’t eat rice in any other format. THAT’S a picky eater.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_aversion
I once lived with a girl [to clarify: temporary roommate on an internship!] who was a vegan, had coeliac disease, said she was lactose intolerant, and hated green vegetables or anything “served on a plate”. She subsisted entirely on rice bread she made in a bread maker, spread with hummus. It was kind of scary.
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That reminds me - why I loved my wife immediately after we met.
On our second date, we went for sushi at her favorite place and sat at the bar. I asked if they had any specials and he rattled off several things, so we asked for one of each special. One was a prawn dish. The live prawns were plucked from a tank, had their tails removed and along with other sashimi, plated - with the still live body of the two prawns. He set this down in front of her and she didn’t bat an eye at the moving eyes and legs.
She later told me that it did freak her out a bit, but she took a breath and powered through.
That’s love! 
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And it’s just not a social occasion if no one risks a medical emergency!
I have often had severe illness after eating at a restaurant. I have to be very picky. Eggplants will give me asthma attacks, mint will give me vomiting, benadryl will give me hives, etc. I haven’t been able to get a proper allergy test though.
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Ha, that would freak me out as well
There’s a huge difference between someone with genuine (if vaguely-defined) medical issues and someone who spends the meal complaining loudly because their General Gao’s chicken is made with dark meat, or someone who insists that someone else cut all of their chicken off of the bones because they can’t stand to look at chicken bones and freak out if they get a glimpse of one, for example.
I once went to a Greek restaurant with some of my extended family, and I ordered one of my favorite dishes, saganaki (flaming Greek cheese). When they brought it out on a tray, blazing, my cousin’s boyfriend actually screamed and fell backwards in his chair. While they were comforting him, it was explained to me that he has a severe cheese phobia and can’t have it in his presence. Those are the sort of people I avoid like the plague.
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[…]
said the waiter, “don’t shout,
or wave it about,
or the rest will be wanting one, too!”
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Wow! That’s the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do. Just sit at the counter, say “omakase” and enjoy - you simply get whatever is freshest that day, and maybe some delicacies that are harder to get regularly and so are not on the menu. Not trusting your sushi chef is like a capital offense in Japan.
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I googled “cheese phobia”. The Daily Star had my favorite headline -
“I CAMEMBERT it! Woman terrified of CHEESE bursts into tears at the sight of it”
Although the Sun UK has a pretty good one -
“Girl who flees if she sees cheese”
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The “SaniTaco” storyline also has some (slight) relevance.
One of the best experiences we had of that type was our wedding reception. After dealing with relatives who swore they would ‘help any way they could’, then became unavailable when we had to drop off the flower arrangements and wedding cake, DH and I were very tired and frustrated. We took the goods to our reception venue, and as we were offloading, the night manager and cook asked if we had special colors or requests. We looked at each other wearily and said “Nah – knock yourself out. Just please include at least one vegetarian dish for our vegetarian friends.” The cook’s eyes got huge and he said “Really?!?”
The reception the following day was spectacular. If we had tried to be choosy, we would not have gotten anywhere near the array of goodies presented.
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