I haven’t been to lunch in a while.
With assorted assemblies, meetings that take up many free blocks, and the senior-fall influx of college visits to the school, I have uncovered a 30-minute get-things-done haven in lunch. Three years and a lifetime ago, I treasured 11:15 to 11:40 as a lovely break in the middle of my not-at-all stressful freshman day. I was genuinely horrified when someone said they didn’t go to lunch. Now I’ve adopted an all-day snacking system and I appreciate lunch as my daily mini free. When I’m doing homework and really just want to sleep, “I’ll do this during lunch” has become a favorite capitulation.
The Quiet Room is blessedly empty, allowing me to choose between a desk or comfy chair or outlet-adjacent chair because my computer is dying again. Sometimes I even venture into the main library—a bold move that says, “I’m choosing academics over social interactions, but I’m doing it in a mildly social space so everyone knows it’s what I’m doing.” Or at least that’s how I always interpreted the choice until mid-October, when I found myself alone at a library table at 12:15, painfully aware of my own obnoxious typing.
“Who have I become?!” I screamed through the library.
Actually, it was less of a scream and more of a haunting internal whisper.
A friend found me later that day and said she hadn’t seen me at lunch in “SO LONG.” My absence had lost its subtlety. I promised to do better and dutifully sat down the next day at a circle table with my chickpea-forward soup situation (you can put chickpeas on anything, really). I participated in the daily dance of carrying soup 50 feet across the Commons in mild panic and splitting one overcrowded table into two empty-feeling tables.
I would say the whole thing was 80% pleasant. There was a bit too much fretting about math tests and college admissions, but some healthy commiserating is not a bad thing. Although I soon found myself worrying about the responses I had left on a blog assignment and when in the world I was going to write this editorial (meta!), I also realized the number of people I miss because we don’t share any classes.
Lunch brings people together. I think I could go up to a total stranger on chicken nugget day and say, “It’s chicken nugget day!” and we would smile and probably jump in a circle singing, “Chicken nugget day, chicken nugget day, today is chicken nugget day!”
This is a theory I have. It’s currently untested.
I didn’t exactly feel recharged after the lunch meetup. I did not leap with excitement at the thought of my afternoon of back-to-back classes, but it was overall a nice, very average experience. Much like how lunch itself can be a nice, very average meal. A sandwich, for example.
The midday experience of lunch, I think, is a good thing, and I’m making an effort to be a part of it more often than not, even if the Quiet Room still holds its allure of productivity. What is most important is fueling the body with the nutrients it needs—but the actual lunch block is just a period of time. Spend it how you will.
Maybe I’ll return to lunch today. Actually, I just realized I’m not done with an English reading. So not today. But someday soon, you’ll see me in the Commons.
—Claire Pingitore ’20
Habitual lunch truant
If you were to enter the Quiet Room during lunch time on any given day, you would see scattered students typing away on laptops or underlining sentences in their books. “Oh, how nice,” you might think. “Students are getting their work done.” But the catch is that these students who have chosen to work through lunch are most likely not eating a meal with their peers.
I get it. I myself have been guilty of skipping lunch on very rare occasions to finish urgent work that I had not done the night before. It happens to all of us, but at what cost? When you look at the schedule, you see that lunch is the only designated time for students to eat—a necessity to get through classes and afternoon commitments. It’s also the only time during the school day allocated for students to spend time together without having to give a thought to work or classes.
In fact, what I find most troubling about students choosing to work through lunch is that it results in a lack of social interaction. I’m sure that we’ve all had days where we’ve simply had to work straight through lunchtime and found ourselves both mentally and emotionally drained. And yes, feeling drained could be attributed to the sheer amount of work we have to complete. But I’d argue that the lack of social interactions might negatively impact students even more.
Lunch is a time to catch up with friends and mentally recharge. Completing homework may be important for maintaining grades, but it can be done at home with effective time management, 0r even in the Commons at lunch—yes, I have typed essays on my phone while enjoying a rice bowl. What you cannot easily do at home is talk to friends. Sure, there’s FaceTime, but how likely is it that everyone in your friend group will be available at the same time? And what about people whom you are not necessarily close with but would enjoy having a conversation with if you saw them at lunch? Working through and missing lunch diminish your secondary relationships—those relationships that uKNIGHT us as a grade and school.
The fact that my classmates and I will all leave the Upper School within the next year is becoming more real each day, and it’s made me realize how, once we graduate, we will most likely not see anyone whom we don’t actively seek out. My premature nostalgia for the class of 2020 has led me to view lunch as a time to talk to those I sadly know I probably won’t see after graduation, and that’s why it’s so important to me.
To those of you who already take advantage of lunch to socialize, keep doing what you’re doing. You’re setting a great example. But to those who choose to skip lunch and bury themselves in work in the Quiet Room, please come to lunch, even if it’s just a few times a week. A simple solution to feeling isolated at school is to go to the Commons at either 11:10 or 12:05, get some food, sit down with friends or loose acquaintances or even somewhat strangers, and talk. Don’t be scared—we don’t bite.
We miss you.
—Charlotte Shapiro ’20
Everyday diner