Eating alone a satisfactory solitude

It’s 9 o'clock on a Saturday. You have your thoughts and a table to yourself. Northwestern gives you a newspaper and a television. You’re sharing a moment called isolation — and nothing is better than eating alone.

Before I came to college, I always thought the people sitting alone at meal times were, for lack of a nicer word, pathetic losers. These utterly hopeless fellows, I assumed, must really be unpopular if they can’t find one, one, person to sit with. Even that forgetful fish Dori in found a friend.

But the college day is overcrowded and surrounded by noise. In particular, lunch is no longer the break from classes. Lunch, for many, is the break from people.

We all need our time alone.

There is such an intense pressure to do something, to be involved at nearly every moment in college. For goodness sake, one meal I was surrounded by dancing pandas promoting a fraternity while blasting Venga Boys music. Besides the nightmares, I was struck by the modern movement against solitude.

This is a movement by the people — people not comfortable enough with themselves to be alone. In fact, the lunch environment is conducive for some “me” time: with laptops, newspapers, televisions and, as always, your thoughts. There is plenty to do by yourself.

Research has proven the benefits, if not the necessity, of periodic solitude. Paradoxically, solitude increases the individual’s ability for intimacy. Self-sufficiency and trust scores rose during periods of isolation, thereby correlating with a person’s ability to hold relationships, according to a 2003 study from the Journal of Social Behavior.

The study, which has since been replicated several times, went on to assert freedom, creativity and spirituality also rise during isolation. This is not saying we should all become cast-aways a la Tom Hanks and befriend an inanimate object, but it is healthy to eat a grilled cheese alone (well, minus the eating grilled cheese part).

Wilson should not be your only friend, but don’t be afraid to be seen alone. The social stigma is nothing more than self-consciousness — a self-created fear that others are watching you. News flash: You and I are both not that big of a deal. Nobody is taking the time to analyze your situation as deeply as you are.

No experience is quite as personal as the one had alone.

So if you ever see me sitting alone in the lunchroom, don’t ask to sit down. I appreciate it, but really, I just want to be left alone.

Medill freshman Sam Block can be reached at samuelblock2013@u.northwestern.edu.