Food: A Lost Medium for Social Interaction

Last Thursday, one of my best friends, Christina Liu, held a brown bag at the Women’s Studies center to discuss her play that debuted over Family Weekend: “This is Not a Play About Sex”. Her play was very powerful and touched on many issues centered around sexual and non-sexual pleasure. It told stories from a diverse array of Colgate students, including a frat boy, a heart-broken girl, a religious boy, a girl with low self esteem, a gay boy, a girl that used to be a boy, etc. The common thread that tied all of these characters together was that they felt unfulfilled by the hook-up culture here at Colgate. At the brown bag, we discussed the possible roots of this shallow hook-up culture. We ended up identifying the lack of fulfilling daytime and sober interactions as one of the important roots of the problem. We spent the rest of the brown bag discussing how to facilitate more fulfilling social interactions – deeper conversations, more sharing of experiences, meeting new people. We began throwing around the idea of wine and cheese nights, and then it hit me – part of the reason we are not having fulfilling social interactions can be traced back to food! So many great conversations happen around the dinner table, but who has dinner together anymore? We are all so busy with our school work, clubs, sports, etc. that eating together has almost become anachronistic. Food has become a fuel to keep our bodies running, nothing more.

That night was the night of the potluck that Kat and Johanna hosted. Although I had tons of work to do that night, I felt that after the discussion at the brown bag, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for homemade food and good conversation. So I went, and it was wonderful.  My friends have hosted a couple potlucks over the course of this semester, and we have had a few wine and cheese nights, but in my opinion it doesn’t happen often enough. Social interaction over food was not meant to be something that happens once a week or once every other week, but every day. It is sad that we are all so busy that this has become next to impossible. When I chose to go to the potluck at Kat and Johanna’s, I ended up staying up until 4 in the morning to finish my work. As a student, I feel that I have to choose between social eating and sleep. It doesn’t seem like that is the way things should be. But what can we do?