Virtual Meals

If initiating actual social interaction for you is easier via bouncing a signal off of a satellite onto someone else’s device – even if that person is in the same house or building with you – and applications like Tinder, AirBnB, Meetup and other platforms meant to streamline virtual digital interaction to actual, real-world interaction are right up your alley, then ‘EatWith’ may be just the menu for your cosmopolitan palate.  In the epoch of increased social ennui and boredom masked very well (sometimes even very well, behind elaborately decorated, tribal-style masks) where digital isolationism pervades a normal dinner table…of course, what is ‘normal’ and who eats dinner at the table with their family anymore anyway, at least at home?...people are now progressively moving back to what families and friends have done for millennia:  eat a meal around a table with nothing but each other, conversation, and, oh yes, food!  EatWith is an application that fosters this and I project its popularity will be on the rise, even though the concept is to eat meals with strangers in your own city and hopefully lively conversation and perhaps new friendships will ensue.  Here’s the rub, though.  If one can muster enough self-control, they can prevent the neurological pathway that directs their hand to their smart phone from firing for an hour or so and maybe get in a few sentences of actual conversation that does not involve photos of the food they’re eating or the people they’re eating with (but not talking to).  But how long can the madness (or really, lack thereof) last?  Why can this sort of interaction not be fostered around one’s own family table?  Our own misconceptions about ourselves have deluded us into thinking that our interactions out in public places are the ‘real us’ and who we are at home when we are around the people we ‘have to be around’ is just our decompression chamber and ventilation shafts of outbursts, moody temperaments, and general annoyance are us on ‘our bad days.’  The unfortunate reality that gently smacks us aside the head is that who we are around the people we are around most – family, spouses, close friends – IS the real us and the public gestures of ‘niceness’ are actually just that, ‘gestures.’  Maybe, rather than ‘Eat[ing]With’ a stranger and having dinner and show (for we are good at putting on shows) we should start by ‘Eat[ing]With’ our own household, minus devices, and add a pinch to a dash of conversation to suit taste.  Once this art has been mastered, the next phase will only be natural.