Splendid, Solitary Dining

Surveys indicate that the number one fear of high school students is eating alone in a crowded cafeteria. Before coming to Harvard, I shared that fear. However, a careful inspection of the overhead photo of students eating elbow to elbow in the Union in the admissions packet quickly allayed my pre-frosh worries. After hearing during FOP about the famous composer who supposedly never ate alone during his undergraduate career, I decided to have a companion at every meal.

Proud to say, I kept my resolution--for pre-frosh week. United by the fear of solitary dining, my roommates and I gathered at 5:30 each evening to venture into the Union for dinner. Sure, our conversations were hollow ("So what is it like to live in Indiana?"), but hey, at least we weren't eating alone.

Set schedules are impossible here, and by the second week--with my roommates scattered across campus in different sections--I found myself alone at the Union. After rushing to the nearest corner to save face, I began shoveling the broccoli-chicken souffle into my mouth, determined to end my pain. Looking back, I set myself up for the hit. Two girls plopped down beside me, introduced themselves ("Hi, I'm Cathy.") and then began a conversation about what kind of anti-social people would eat alone in the Union--all the while ignoring me. Only 282 more meals to Winter Break.

Things really got bad during the third week. I was having dinner between sections, and a worker came up to me and asked, "Are you okay?" I openly wondered if I was the admission committee's social mistake. On the solitary trek to dinner, fluorescent pink Room 13 posters screamed "EATING ALONE IN THE UNION?" from every kiosk.

In retrospect, I realize I was a small part of a collective neurosis. On one of my more fortunate nights, I listened to a friend recollect how she was dining alone at a corner seat when a foreign entryway invaded her table and completely ignored her. Another friend would refuse to eat unless someone accompanied him to the dining hall. Then there was the rumor of the girl who would take an extra tray and set it across from her so no one would think she was alone.

Perhaps my paranoia was a result of my transition to college life. In high school, the bell would ring and a dozen of my friends would convene over our federally subsidized lasagna to have deep discussions about which teachers wore a hair piece. It's pretty hard to eat alone when there are only 200 people in your graduating class. Here, 1,600 people on different schedules rush in and out of the Union three times a day. Running into someone you know is improbable unless you have an elaborate system of e-mail and phone messages to coordinate the daily pilgrimage, as my roommates did.

Humans adapt to the most difficult circumstances. Strangely, I began to look forward to my solitary dining. At Harvard, people are in your face 24 hours a day--in the morning when mysterious singing would drift through the ventilation system into the shower, during section and then again at 3 a.m. when one's roommates host a party. I needed space to think; in the Union, everyone left me alone.

I began to plan missions to the Union before tests and papers. It's easy to tell who ends up alone by accident because they are the ones who stare blankly ahead, waiting for a sympathetic friend to pass. The prepared bring books and study cards. Some of my best thinking was done at the corner tables, where I would ponder my research or think of scholarship essays.

Midway into the fourth week of school, I was lunching alone when the social creme de la creme of the first-year class sat down across from me. I waited for her usual entourage to surround me, prepared to dine in shame. No one came. She pulled out a tiny red book of poetry and waited for me to say "Hi I'm Curtis." After pausing for a moment to consider the tacit offer, I picked up my tray and left.

Curtis R. Chong thought of this editorial while having a solitary lunch at the beach.