Time is an Illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so.

I started at a new school in the sixth grade. One that, at the time, was significantly more intimidating than my former school. I went from a world of tether ball tournaments and Halloween parades to one of uniforms and pop quizzes. Even lunchtime, the most fundamental part of the day, was different.

At my old school, all my friends brought a bagged lunch from home. The infamous Lunchables, dinner leftovers, a simple sandwich. Each day, the class clown would stand on top of a lunch bench while he fashioned his gourmet peanut butter and gummy worm sandwich (do not try this at home).

During my first week at the new school, I ate lunch alone. Partly because I had few friends, but also because the lunch culture was completely foreign to me. At this school, most people got lunch from the cafeteria. All the tables would be empty for the first twenty minutes as students waited in line for food. An era when there were no iPhones to pass away idle moments, I would nibble at my food to look occupied. By the time people started trickling in, I would have finished eating (I am an obnoxiously fast eater...I'm working on this). Things turned around when I added a lunch plan at the start of Week 2.

In high school, lunch was included in our tuition. And it was damn good food, too. Our cafeteria was called "The Edge." It was an environment where, for the most part, you could comfortably sit down at any table, which usually consisted of both students and teachers. Conversations would span from World History to weekend plans. During a bonfire before high school graduation, we went around in a circle and talked about what we would miss most. One person mentioned that she would miss The Edge. When I'm eating with my family, I feel comfortable taking food off any of their plates. And at this point, I feel comfortable doing that with any of you sitting at my table in The Edge. It was her way of saying that we were all like family.

Last summer, I was one of the handful of interns at a company where most employees had been there for years, and knew "everyone," it seemed. Walking into a sea of unknown faces at the cafeteria and the prospect of sitting alone at a table were overwhelming thoughts, to say the least. Most days, I ate lunch in my cube while continuing to work, nervous that every loud crunch of my apple or crinkle of my shrink wrap would annoy my neighbors. I began to despise lunchtime.

During my sophomore year of college, academics and extra-curriculars made it so that free time during lunch was a privilege I simply could not award myself. I dreaded lunchtime because it was a stressful period in which I had too much to complete in a limited amount of time, while slowly becoming more and more isolated from my friends.

Over the years, I've come to realize that lunch is one of the few time periods during the day that coordinates well with others' schedules, be it colleagues, fellow students, or friends. It's a time where friendships are formed and networks are established. A time when the culture of an environment runs free.

I've heard that the phrase let's do lunch sometime is a great tool for respectful avoidance. It's classic and polite but rarely involves follow-through. Though if you ask me, it's not as wonderful as it may seem. Because when you employ it, when you avoid that social lunch, you hurt yourself more than you hurt anyone else.