Do You Eat Alone?
October 5th, 2007 - Jarkko
Eating seems to be a hot topic.
Many bloggers are referring to the book Never Eat Alone
Many people also hate eating alone: My wife always calls up her friends to see if someone would have lunch with her. Lynoure goes even further and says that having lunch alone is a pain which she tries to cover it by listening to pod casts or working while eating.
And there’s nothing bad about that: Yesterday I had lunch with another blogger who also happens to be my ex-colleague. We talked about work, books and business, and it was definitely a lunch break well spent.
But that’s not how I usually spend my lunch breaks.
I usually eat alone.
Not because I don’t like people. But because I like to spend some time alone every now and then.
My days are filled with working with people, talking to people, and being around other people. So having a break of about half an hour during lunch time all by myself can be a rather important relaxing moment. The one moment in the day dedicated to only being by myself.
What about you? Do you ever eat alone? And no matter if you answer yes or no, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic. Why do you choose to eat alone or not to eat alone? I’m curious to see if I am in the minority or not.
Sorry, this is not really related to this post, but I recommend adding your site to http://www.blogilista.fi, some people might find your blog from the Finnish blog directory, too.
I prefer to have lunch with someone as most of the time I am staring screen and communicating via phone, email or chat. So for me it is a nice moment to get some distance from computers.
I prefer to eat alone. It is a great way to think about things that I want to do, need to do, generate ideas, or just do nothing. I spent most days on the computer or out with people. Eating alone is a great way to relax.
I am very fortunate in that I only work 10 minutes from home, so I spend my lunch hour with my wife every day. It’s a great time for us to “catch up” on things without having kids in the way.
I still go home for lunch when she’s not around because I have to get out of the office to recharge. I at least need those precious few minutes of fresh air I get while I’m going back and forth.
Great comments, guys!
C2162: Good idea! I’ll do that right now :)
Pepez: Yeah, I agree for the part about getting some distance from my computer. I used to eat lunch at my desk at some point, but I don’t do that anymore… I just need to have a break in the middle of the working day to get some fresh air and be away from work for a while.
Cindy: My thoughts exactly!
Jeff: Wow, that’s great! I guess that even beats eating alone ;)
I do take my time alone, too… :) Weirdly it seems the more people there are around me, the better I am at ignoring them all.
I’m planning to have lunch at least once a week with someone on my LinkedIn contact list, as it’s a good excuse to ask people.
It’s a custom at our office to go for lunch together. Since we are sw developers we spend most of our days working alone with the computer. Lunch and coffee breaks are “the social events of the day”.
To list the benefits of eating out together:
- You learn to know your colleagues better and find out what their interested in.
- You get to know other restaurants than the cafeteria downstairs. Your colleagues might know restaurants you’ve never visited, so lunch is great opportunity to try that weird looking restaurant around the corner.
- You get to see what others are having for lunch, maybe you try the same next time.
- You eat slower, since you take breaks for chatting.
Lynoure, great tip on LinkedIn! I was just wondering how to use my connections on daily basis, not only when finding a job.
Lynoure: That’s a great idea! As something I do once a week, I think it might be something I would like to do too :)
I’ll have to give it some thought…
Harri: Good points. Although on the downside many of the things listed also often mean spending more money than if you eat by yourself.
And thanks for leaving the comment – I’m happy that through it I found your blog (and subscribed almost immediately).
Eating alone is not the best idea but it also is time to spend by yourself. If you having problems and your that kind of person who eat your feeling you would need to eat with someone. But like i said before eating alone helps you think and generate allot of ideas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I vastly prefer eating alone. It’s the only time I get to read my books.
Going to lunch with others is exhausting. I have to have a stupid smile plastered on my face the whole time. I have to double check everything I want to say in my head before I open my mouth, to make sure it’s not offensive or otherwise rude (I apparently have no social skills). I have to pretend to know about whichever game was on TV last night. I have to not mention my religious or political views, which are the complete opposite of my coworkers, even while they talk about theirs.
In short, it’s completely stressful.
Give me an hour with a good book any day.