NOEA

It's not always easy to eat alone, but it's always what we're advised to do. I just felt uneasy after reading the "do's and don'ts" for dining at workplace, as if we're entering a whole new season of cold isolation. The dining table around us grow quieter and emptier each passing day.

This reminds me of Lili Rachel Smith, a young woman born with Apert syndrome leading to her horribly deformed face after premature fusion of the skull bones. She grew up in San Francisco where she attended middle school. Although she wasn't bullied, she felt invisible within ever-shrinking walls. Lunchtime means oblivion. Uncertain what to do after eating alone, she'd retreat to a toilet and call her mom. The more she stayed isolated, the more terrible sense it made.

After her tragic death at age fifteen, her mom founded a nonprofit organization to combat social isolation in schools. One of their best known student-led initiatives was No One Eats Alone (NOEA) Day. Ooooh ... can't you just see the inspiring message? It's that simple: Make sure no one sits alone at lunch.

That's not to say that I object to the latest decision to ban dine-in service at 6pm. There is of course a great deal of scientific evidence, including one model using mobile-phone data to map people's movement on the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, proving that restaurants are hotspots for the disease. As published in Nature, the model demonstrated that capping restaurant venue occupancy at 30% would reduce new infection by more than 80%. Much as I love science, to the point of worship, I must confess that I also cringe at the idea of an al desko lunch. 

No. No. NOEA.