Iwas sitting alone enjoying (though enjoy is not the most appropriate word when dealing with college dining) a meal at Full Fare early in the dinner cycle. The time 5:00 p.m., the place Full Fare. I was eating alone. Few people actually sit down to eat a meal in solitude. But for breakfast and the early Full Fare people, a meal spent with no one but themselves is a common occurrence.
Most people manage to have dinner with at least one other person if not six or seven, or the whole team. For those eating with their team, it's often a routine. The meal after practice.
However, for most of us dinner is a social event of high anticipation. Who are we going to have dinner with tonight? The people in the hall, lost friends from our D.O.C. trips, that member of the opposite sex on whom an eye has been firmly fixed?
Having options is a good thing, and even not exercising options and just having a bunch of close friends with whom good dinner conversation can be had every day is a good thing.
If eating with people is such a good thing, what's with all those people who choose to dine alone, among whom I must include myself? Do they even have a choice?Or are we all social rejects with whom the rest of the Dartmouth community has deemed unfit to be seen at dinner, and as a result have been relegated to the first hour of Full Fare dinner? I don't think of myself as social reject, at least not too much of one that no one would want to eat with me.
One year at the Dartmouth dining halls has been an educational experience. I've learned that the will of the stomach is of primary concern. I still believe that dining is one of the greatest social events ever concocted.
When I was in high school, I ate out with my friends, and we sat at the restaurants for hours, talking. When I thought about eating, I always thought about the long meals enjoyed in the company of friends. However, I forgot about all the meals I had when I was hungry. The Whopper Value meals enjoyed while driving, the bowls of soup from year-old Campbell cans, the leftovers from the party two weeks ago. Those meals only served to give the stomach something to chew and not the mouth.
Even at a college as prestigious as Dartmouth, the baser needs of the stomach must be addressed. Having that meal in solitude is great. The stomach is happy and I'm happy. The social etiquette of eating can be thrown out and the food can be savored for what it is, proteins to be digested.
When I want a social dining experience I'll have dinner out with my friends at some place a cut above Food Court, and I don't mean Home Plate. It's so much easier to eat when one wants to, instead of waiting for people to agree on a time and place. The facts be known that not everybody's stomach experiences pangs of hunger precisely at the 6:07 Food Court rush.
When dining should be a social occasion, let it be. There is no better way to spend two, three or even four hours but in comfortable chairs nibbling or biting heartily into tasty food and conversation. However, the tedious day-to-day dining routine should probably go. What's the point of organizing ten people so that one only talks to the same two people day in and day out? When the stomach growls, feed it.
