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Prior to writing this article, a friend of mine asked me, “Hey Sascha, What are you going to write your article on?” I replied with, “Eating alone at lunch.” Immediately after my response, she frowned and let out an “Awhhhhhh!” That reaction is exactly what I want to address.
In society, being alone in public places is typically associated with loneliness. At lunch, in the cafeteria, we see a student sitting alone and say, “Poor kid!”,at the mall we see an old man walking around alone and say, “How creepy!”, and when someone tells us they’re thirty-five and single we say, “Sucks to be you.” Being alone does not translate to loneliness. Ask Thoreau, he was chilling alone in Walden, and was completely content and fulfilled.
On the first day of school this year, I walked in the newly renovated lunchroom and was greeted by new booths and circular tables scattered about. Honestly, the scene reminded me of cliché movie representations of high school. Kids were congregated in close knit groups, also known as “cliques”. I had never thought of Bob Jones as a “cliquey” environment, but the lunchroom renovations seem to encourage that mentality. There was no longer the solace of anonymity that the previous long tables allowed. There were only circular tables of social doom.
Socialization is forced upon us from birth until death. I understand the necessity of socialization at a young age, but when you’re seventeen and perfectly aware of how to schmooze, forcing teenagers into herds is futile. The sad thing is, it doesn’t stop in adolescence. Media focuses around “connecting with your friends” and “meeting new people”. Why can’t we be alone? Does no one appreciate spending a night (or week) alone just perusing the internet and eating a bunch of food? Stop forcing us to assimilate! Let the loners be alone and let the old men stay single! Let anonymity reign limitlessly and separate sadness from silence!
