Wouldn't you love somebody to love?
 

I guess I must be a boring old fart. Nobody will go to lunch with me at work. I'm not talking a tawdry let's-have-an-office-affair lunch thing. I'm talking just a friendly walk-down-the-sidewalk-and-have-a-brew-and-sandwich thing. Friendly, ya know. My office mate (we're two to an office) is sitting here and a guy we both know asks him to go to lunch. I'm sitting five feet away! Like, hello...!

But they're both younger. What a drag it is to get old.

Or maybe it's my deoderant.

I'll show them. I'll go out and have lunch by myself and then buy a record or something on the way back. Yeah, that'll get em.

I'm a pathetic loser.

But at least I have you guys.

yes, I would

You know, you could ask someone if they want to go to lunch. I've found that if I don't take the initiative in social situations, nothing ever happens.

Yeah, I know. Thing is, I don't like most of the people I work with! So I guess I'm screwed.

Unlucky guy you are.I mainly work by myself and this board has ben paying for it.Some days it's so tedious talking to strangers on the phone,i could hang myself.Some other days it's fine because it means i can disguise my hangovers more easily than if i had to face someone else in the same office.Lunchtime is fine because i share it with people from other departments.If not,i take a walk along the river and throw stones at pigeons.

I don't like sharing lunches with people. It's all about looking sullen in a dirty cafe with a wanky book and a fag hanging out of my mouth.

You could always just sit down with a stranger who is eating alone. Or you could find out if your friends who work nearby have their lunchbreak.

Eatting alone in public locations, I find is depressing.
When at school lunch I have homemade stuff so I get to the table first while I wait for every one to get their lunch. A long three minutes it is.

my problem is that I am quite shy around the ladies (I'm afariad of screwing up)

I think you'll find they don't mind screwing up as much as you think. I think they even find a little awkwardness endearing. Speaking from my own experience. (But keep in mind, the gold on my finger has kept me out of circulation with "the ladies" for a long while.)

Yeah, ditto. I feel very self-conscious eating alone. A book helps, but even then, I'm like conscious that I'm trying not to look self-conscious by reading a book while I eat. Plus then what are concentrating on--the food or your book, or even the battle over self-consciousness.

So sometimes I try to eat at my desk, and then go outside and take a walk or visit the record store.

I wish I could leave during lunch, a ton of people do but it's against the rules. Last year, Junior year I was the only one out of my group of friends with that lunch. It sucked, I ate lunch alone for like two weeks.

when people say something like that, I can't help but hear the word "poser" in the back of my mind. you don't have to go for a look to be cool...

I had to sit by myelf for nearly a semester. Or it's more I chose to. I could've sat with a bunch of ignorant fucks, but I enjoy my company much more.
I do agree that you should take the initiative and ask someone (though I probably wouldn't do it) or if someone you know works near you, meet them for lunch.

High school sucks. But stay in school. It won't last forever.

Here's another thing that sucks about my office.

My room is right next to the microwave/kitchen area. Around 11.30 everyone starts bringing down their leftover casseroles and pizzas and chili and heating them up. Sometimes the aromas are pleasant enough. But mostly they just stink. I mean, awful dog-shit smells that make me want to barf. So it's hard to sit at my desk while they cook up their awful leftovers. I'm almost compelled daily to get up and leave so I can get fresh air, and then when I'm outside, I figure I might as well go to lunch.

Okay, so work sucks. I want to be home.

one more year...

where do you work?

Totally agree. It's what I do though. Maybe I'm a poseur, but I'm a very well-read poseur.

I'm a writer/editor at a university.

I shouldn't say work sucks. I like my job. I like the money. I love the campus.

I just don't like the office environment.

Ah, I was figuring it was one of those corporate things.

in that case, right on my brutha...

everything is corporate, there is no use trying to avoid it. just don't be a part of it, and you are safe.

Yeah... I'm not part of the man because I do my job really badly. That'll learn the bastard.

Selling out was one of the best things I ever did.

I feel for ya gmku

Here at the law firm where I work I am always eating lunch by myself. when we used to get the NY Times I would buy some lunch,a dn sit i our lunch room reading the NY Times and the Houston Chronicle. However that had to end because people will not leave me alone. they always want to talk to me and it never has anything to do with what I am reading nor do they have consideration for a man reading the paper and shit.
then I would go eat lunch wityh my best friend and we would have fun and talk and enjoy lunches, but noe am back to myself at my desk, eating lunch at my desk.

I work with a bunch of squares. man, L 7 weenies.

it is terrible, and being in dwontown hosuton there is no way to sneak off at klunch and go to a record store or something like that.

Ha. Yeah. But at least it's a university and not GM or some other greedy bastards. Although I'm not always sure there's that much difference.

Wow, I have been spoiled.
At one of my old jobs, I was just two blocks from home, so I went home for lunch every day. Best solution ever.
At the record store, I worked with a workaholic who sort of created an environment such that I never had a normal "lunch break" the entire time I worked there. There were only two of us and a dog there all day anyway, so it wasn't like I had any "office culture" to deal with.
I think I would have a hard time in your situation, gmku. I am usually "the weirdo" at most jobs, and prefer to keep my worlds of work and socialness apart.

So guess what I did at lunch? I buys meself a back pack. Been wanting one for a while, saw a sale. I'm trading it for my old soft-leather brief case. Now when I walks to work or across campus I don't has to feel like such a corporate stooge. Now I can feel like the old weird guy who never grew up and left campus.

Sounds better than hollow conversation with office dorks.

I work in a small shop & we only have one person at a time going for lunch. That's why I'm always on here during lunch. Then again I'm talking to people all day and enjoy the peace.

My dream job is working in a record or book store. I think I could be really happy doing that.

I started working for an independent bookstore who went bust & were bought up by a larger company & we've now been bought up by Waterstones & so are by far the biggest bookstore chain in the country,

Stil, I run a bookstore & really enjoy it. I spend every day surrounded by, and talking about books.

There is no money to be made any more in independent record stores. The ones in Houston (which used to have dozens of independent record stores) that are still around are scraping by.

it is sad.

books rule.

I feel ya. Tough I am just a kid who doesn't know exactly what the hell he's talking about yet. But I work in a fileroom at an office building where pretty much everyone is older than me, and always go to lunch alone. And I always hated getting to the table first in high school. I would "forget something in my locker" if I got there first, just to avoid that. I have a really great fear of being alone, but I think it's an important fear to get over. If you can be happy alone, you can be happy in any situation. So I try to make the best of it when I am. Doesn't always work, though.

Yeah I'm not really trying to eat with my coworkers.....I'd much rather eat by myself and enjoy my lunch instead of having to pretend to enjoy talking about stuff that I don't care about. I'm a loner Dottie....A REBEL.

awww, i'd go to lunch with you gmku!!, and im young and female, we aren't so scary and really its more irretating when guys are too shy to ask you out to lunch than when they do and are all nervous in front of you.
thats cute. try asking someone if they want to get coffee, you never know they might have been waiting for you to ask them??

i work in an art shop that sells big prints of famous paintings and frames etc, i eat my lunch with a guy who works i the shop opposite mine, he never asks me to lunch i always ask him, but i can tell he wants to be there with me.

Aw, man- you're the coolest oldish guy ever too.

You need a monkey friend.

Haha, giving him false hope, then. That's great.

no, i'd totally go out with him if he asked me!, but he never has, and i dont think i could carry on having lunch with him if i asked him out and he said no.

Well he probably feels the same way. Doesn't that stuff just suck? Trick him into asking you.

I don't know how, though. Maybe play charades or something and act it out...