Most Choate students have a common reaction to Community Lunch: “Ugh, it’s basically forcing you to make friends,” or “Ugh, you have to sit with and talk to people you’ve never heard of before! I’d rather sit with my friends!” It’s widely known that Community Lunch is something Choate students love to loathe. As a new third former, I had never really encountered anything like Community Lunch before. Whenever I asked what it was about, I was told to ready to hate it.
The goal of Community Lunch is for people to meet new people on campus and learn about them while talking to them over a meal. Without actually going through Community Lunch, one already feels a sense of awkwardness when conversing with random people. I felt nervous going to my first Community Lunch, thinking that it would be the worst thing that would ever happen to me. Turns out, I actually knew the people at my table, and we couldn’t stop chatting the whole time. The secret to conquering Community Lunch is to take it in stride. Treat it like the first day of high school, when you were eager to make friends. If you go to it already with an annoyed attitude and an apathy toward the people you don’t know, Community Lunch will just make you more miserable. If you show up with a positive attitude, people will gravitate to you and join in the conversation.
If, in fact, no conversation is able to happen, what’s the harm? It’s just 45 minutes a week—really, not even once a week. You’ll have a sporadic, slightly awkward experience to add to your list of awkward experiences. Most likely you’ve already got a lot of these. I certainly do. Community Lunch is likely far down on the list.
In any case, Community Lunch will probably get you to meet new people or see people on campus that you’d never thought to talk to. You get to bond over the awkwardness of being forced to mingle. Together, roll your eyes at the idea of Community Lunch. It’s a pop of color in the monotonous, black-and-white, work-wo-work schedule of Choate life. It can be perceived as a time to relax and chat. And eat, of course. The food at Community Lunch is intentionally of a higher quality than regular lunches. A lot of people would rather be doing work during their free period, I know. But who can oppose the one time you get good food in a buffet at the Choate dining hall?
After I decided to embrace the notorious Community Lunch, I didn’t feel so scared to make friends anymore. Sure, it’s forced friend-making, but why not go with the flow instead of opposing it? Seeming like a pleasant person in front of people — or at least not openly abhorring sitting with strangers — has never been a bad thing. The idea of Community Lunch itself may be irritating, but at least it provides some variation from the normal lull of going to class, going to lunch, sitting with the same friends, and going back to class.
Plus — it’s required, so there’s no point in skipping it and getting an unexcused absence. Just enjoy it for what it is and try and make some new friends while you’re at it.
