On Thursday, I walk into the cafeteria and plop my bag onto a chair by the window. After I’ve gone through the salad line and picked out what other food looks edible, I carry my plate and silverware back to the table and arrange my spot. Glass of water behind my plate on the right, napkin on lap, phone on my left, notepad and paper near my hand. In between bites, I email and send messages, check or add to my to-do list for the day, and mentally plot out the division of hours between work, class, meetings, homework, exercising and sleep. It’s my 20 to 30 minutes to organize my thoughts and day, to watch the rain and forest outside and calm and clear my mind.

Last year, I would have never dreamed of eating a meal by myself. As a freshman, I wanted to make friends and push myself to be more outgoing, so if I sat by myself, I blamed myself for not being brave enough to make new friends.

In my second year of college, I don’t feel that same pressure to meet as many people as possible. I’m content with my handful of friends and love meeting people, but I don’t feel the need to find a “group” to always hang out with. Besides, schedules have changed, and a lot of my friends don’t eat at the same times as I do anymore. I’ll eat with people when possible, but meals are often more a matter of convenience than a matter of delight.

I don’t eat meals in order to enjoy them so much as I eat meals in order to keep my body healthy and strong. Of course, I still will eat dark chocolate covered espresso beans at midnight with my friends or order a cappuccino at my favorite coffee shop. But my meals have become a matter of utility, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

Certainly, it’s beneficial to eat healthily, but should that be the only end of food? And while it may be convenient to eat a quick lunch by myself between class and work, am I losing something by not being with people?

Almost every day of my life before coming to college, I ate dinner with my family. No matter if my siblings or I didn’t come home from sports until 8 at night, we would wait to eat until all five kids and two parents could sit down together. Occasionally my mom’s insistence on family dinners annoyed me (for example when I came home from soccer practice and had to wait two hours to eat or when family dinners and devotions and dinners would take up two hours of my night and I had a bunch of homework to finish.

But I resorted to eating snacks at 5 p.m. to ease my stomach's hunger pains, and our conversations and arguments around the dinner table remain some of my fondest memories. (Not to mention the home-cooked food.) I am incredibly grateful for the hours my family has spent gathering around the table, and I feel sorry for the children and young adults who have never known the ritual of family dinners.

But the question remains: why is it more fun to eat chocolate with your friends than by yourself? Why is the snack table the central gathering of any party? Why was I ashamed freshman year to walk into the cafeteria and eat dinner alone?

I am sure that there are historical, cultural, and social explanations. I could make some metaphor about how humans require both sustenance and companionship to live. But for now, I am going to stick with this simple answer. Eating in community prioritizes relationship over individual ease. We live in an individualistic nation and culture, and by eating together, we demonstrate that love is more important than individual aspirations.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t eat lunch by yourself or that you have to invite friends every time you want some food. Rather, make time to delight in another person’s presence. Cook good food, and share it. As hard it is to believe sometimes, we don’t live just to earn BA’s or to gain pay raises or to fashion ourselves into exactly whom we want to be. We live for slow afternoons baking with friends, for dinners that last till 10 p.m., for lasagna and fresh bread and plum preserves and for the people with whom we cook and eat and clean.