Disrupting your meal

Animals are known to kind of freak out if you mess with their meal time. Humans are basically no different, and thankfully I was not attacked. My method of disruption was to approach random tables, preferably with few people at them, along with people standing in line, and a few people eating alone. I would start asking semi personal questions like where you live on campus, where you're from, what's your birthday and so on. The large tables often shooed me away after one or two questions. The people standing in line tended to open up more than the others, but still to shy away leaving me with only one question answered because they had just gotten their food. The loners were the most surprising group the opened up and were willing to talk. In doing so, this group already breaking the norms by showing up alone continues to do so in orderly fashion. In general, I was there and gone, I limited myself to no more than seven questions, so that I wouldn’t be overly intrusive. I observed how people acted after I came up to them, and most seemed to have disapproval written all over their face. It just shows you how open college students really are.

The intracacies of the Dining Halls

I spent two separate hours observing this environment, and the people bustling to and fro around it. For good measure I spent one of the hours in Rams Head and another in Lenoir, coming away with a similar picture of both places. The people come and go frequently, usually in groups ranging from 2 to ten, and sometimes alone. Sometimes, on less crowded occasions, the people will go straight for the food, but the norm is for people to find a table first then to go get food. Getting food is an interesting process; it involves standing in lines, some of which can get very long and waiting for a person behind a counter to serve you food. After that, lively eating and discussion happens across hopefully decent food. It is abnormal for people to approach others and ask to sit with them; I observed one fellow who struck out when he asked to join a group.