Conscious Eater

I never sought to enjoy my food alone but that's how I eat my lunch at the food court. When I started my career, I too was part of a group. We drew the tables together or adjusted ourselves around a small table. As years passed the married ones started bringing their own lunch boxes. These lunch boxers formed their own group with like minded colleagues. They stopped coming down to the food court and instead started having their lunch in the office cafeteria itself.

As it turned out I prefer to be alone in a group rather than alone by being alone. Maybe I would be alone with strangers around me than with familiar faces. I sit alone at the table with other three chairs getting wasted and eat, trying to avoid any eye contact with the people sitting in groups next to me. Eating alone has made me conscious about the etiquette of it. I would start thinking whether I have closed the mouth or chewing without any sound. Did I keep my left hand on the table? Does it matter? This self-consciousness doesn't stop at eating.

After I finish eating I have to walk all the way across the hall to come out of the building from the hand wash room located at the other corner. Walking along with friends, I was hardly aware of my steps but alone I hardly feel the floor. As a result my walking style in general has become so self-conscious and haphazard that the other day my three and half year old daughter reprimanded me to walk straightly and even demonstrated the right way of doing it. "Mol, let me see, how long you'll be surefooted".

I, of course, don't get my lunch box. I don't see the point of it for two reasons. First, how absurd and unprofessional one looks while walking with the lunch box and eating from it! Second, I assume most people eat home food because they want to be healthy in their old age. Why does one want to live beyond the age of sixty?