[caylus]

> How does a dining area and free food affect loneliness? Will it make it worse by highlighting things

This is my experience exactly. I'm sure at a certain company size it might help form connections, but at my larger company people arrange into cliques. It's like the high school cafeteria all over again.

I've switched to eating at my desk, not because I don't want to be social, but because it's less painful than being rejected by the cliques.

[mwfunk]

If you're at a company where you can't find a place to sit in the cafeteria because you're being rejected by cliques, holy shit. Get out of there this instant. To be honest, I'm so surprised by this statement that I can't help but feel skeptical about it, but if it's true, then you must've found one of the worst places to work in the entire world.

In my darker moments, I feel like a social cancer sometimes, and am no doubt really abrasive and unfun to hang around with some days. But even so, in the 2 decades I've been in the tech workforce, I have never felt like my coworkers were cliques of snotty teenagers looking down on me to such a degree that they wouldn't let me sit with them in the cafeteria. If this is your environment, it's not you, it's them, and you need to get out of that company ASAP. Basic adult respect should be a precondition for working at any professional workplace.

[Shaanie]

Most likely it's not that they're outright telling him to move, instead they probably show disinterest or make it clear in some other non-confrontational way that they'd rather not have him sit with them.

[toomuchtodo]

> but because it's less painful than being rejected by the cliques.

Have you asked to sit with these groups of people and been verbally rejected? To belong, you will need to make the social effort.

EDIT: Hey folks, I'm not trying to be rude. I am genuinely trying to help OP. If you want to join a group for lunch, walk up to them with your lunch and say "Would you mind if I join you?" Don't wait for an invitation that might never present itself. You have nothing to lose except a possible rejection (which is important to learn is minor).

[yason]

Is there a particular reason you'd like to join with one, some or all of the cliques?

It's quite natural for people who get along to group together because in the group you can act and speak more freely with the friends you know. When a new person joins the discussion easily dies because everybody suddenly has to start thinking again what you can and cannot say. It doesn't mean the people in a clique would be actively rejecting you but just that they're quite happy as they are and more interested in relaxing on their lunch break rather than working to make new friends.

[rcfox]

I'm curious if the cliques are actively rejecting you, or you're rejecting yourself by assuming they don't want you?

Just because no one has invited you to sit with them doesn't mean that you'd be unwelcome.

[kolpa]

Does being rejected by cliques at lunch make your experience worse than be rejected by cliques in other activities at work? Would a non-cafeteria workplace, where cliques went outside to eat, or brown-bagged in the break area, or sat each at their own desk, felt less painful?

[caylus]

> Does being rejected by cliques at lunch make your experience worse than be rejected by cliques in other activities at work?

Fair point. I'd say the frustration comes more from the double-talk of "look how inclusive our workplace culture is: everyone eats together in the cafeteria!" The company admitting "we don't have any norms around lunch; everyone is on their own" would not be an objectively better experience, but at least would be honest.

Another option would be to have more official team, group, or project-based lunches, rather than a free-for-all, where specific members of a team privately invite other specific members of a team.

I don't mean to turn this into a rant, just adding a data point :)

[sotojuan]

> Another option would be to have more official team, group, or project-based lunches, rather than a free-for-all, where specific members of a team privately invite other specific members of a team.

That would just lead to people doing small talk and then being on their phones for the whole lunch because they aren't sitting with people they want to talk to.

[Swizec]

> rather than a free-for-all, where specific members of a team privately invite other specific members of a team.

You might not have realized this before, or you may have, but you too can privately invite a bunch of people to lunch. Form your own clique!

[watwut]

Are they cliques or rather groups of friends?