One the things that bugged me the most about working was I wasn't allowed to eat lunch by myself. I had to force myself to eat lunch with others when I would have preferred to sit by myself and read a book or magazine and maybe go for a walk.
This must be one of the NT rules: you must eat lunch with everyone else.
you must eat lunch with everyone else.
Not necessarily. You don't want to eat in the corner of the lunchroom by yourself, because people will think you are unfriendly, but if you get into a regular routine of going for a walk at lunchtime every day and tell your co-workers that you are doing it to lose weight (or to maintain a healthy weight) then they won't feel slighted.
Stash a few energy bars in your desk and eat them when no one is looking! 
One way is to take a book to lunch and simply sit where you choose and read it.
Then others will see that you are busy reading and hopefully won't bother you, and you won't notice if they give you looks because you are busy reading.
I've always hated eating with other people. When I was a kid I'd wander round and find somewhere quiet to eat my sandwiches, as far away from the others as possible. When I was employed I'd go and eat my food in the car, unless I had a desk in a corner away from other employees. If forced to eat in the proximity of others, I'd do it while reading the paper and attempting the crossword, thereby having a good excuse to ignore them.
I really couldn't give a toss what other people think. That's probably why I've got so many friends. :roll:
I usually go into town (about 2 blocks from the workplace) and eat there but sometimes I eat at my desk and sometimes in the tea-room if some people I like are in there. I think it should be a person's own choice if they want to eat alone or with others.
At work I always buy my food in the staff canteen and then go and find a small table to sit on my own - it's OK because there are so many thousands of staff in my company that most people don't know me anyway (except of course the people in my own team, and they seem to eat elsewhere or at different times to me anyway). Sometimes I buy a newspaper and sit and read that at the table, and no-one has disturbed me.
So far I have been lucky, there has always been a vacant table when I have gone for my lunch-hour.
I like to eat my lunch alone too. I usually go across the road to the national library and have a quick lunch in their cafe then read my book in their reading room. At morning tea time I just go to our cafe by myself and read the newspaper - people sometimes say hello and don't seem to mind me being on my own there.
I prefer to eat alone. At some times that wasn't possible. Sometimes none of the kids wanted me to sit by them in school, so I'd sit apart, and then the teachers would make me sit with the least crowded table. When people don't mind me sitting by them, I try to find the least stimulating person I can find and sit between that person and the wall.
I always thought it was strange that people would be hanging out together all day at work and then they'd also want to eat lunch together! I'd like to say to them, "Uh guys, isn't is a lunch
break" but of course they would be insulted by that so I just tell them I like to get some air, and then I go outside to read and eat. That way I can get sun too, which by the way is very important to any of you who stay inside a lot! (Sun is not the evil radiation demon the sunscreen manufacturers would have you believe, it's a life-giver.
(And don't always wear sunglasses either, your eyes need some sun :wink: ))
I always eat lunch by myself at my desk. Nobody ever gives me a hard time about it, though in general (according to what I've been told recently) I have a reputation as being a "loner" and having poor social relatedness. For some reason that doesn't really bother me as long as I get to keep my job!
I tend to walk around eating a sandwich or something else "portable", only time i'll sit down is when i'm on the computer working, often at college i'd sit in the corner of the common room with my laptop and just listen to music on earphones while hacking away on something or other.
I do eat in the employee breakroom, but it isn't usually crowded- most of the other employees are smokers and go outside or to their cars. I bring a book and pretty much ignore the other people unless it is soemone that I don't mind talking to.
Of course, if they try to talk to me, I have to respond, but generally I speak very little and zone out in my book and they ignore me too.
Funnily, back at College, there was a smaller breakroom in one of the buildings that ONLY employed special needs kids, to give them some basic work experiences and self help skills.
Since people didn't tend to go there a great deal it was always quieter (No doubt the "cool students" would be too busy sneer at the special needs students to be seen dead in there) and well stocked with a variety of free-to-borrow papers because less people to take them off the counter. So I'd always drop by that canteen instead of the crowded and noisy main canteen.
The only place I worked properly was an IT helpdesk for the local council offices, so we'd just eat lunch in the office since:
A) I was always busy with SOMETHING, and...
B) Health and safety doesn't apply to the computer techs (If the IT techs spent all their time ensuring leads were tucked in safe places, procautions seen to, equipment correctly stowed away, and food kept away from the machines, we'd never get our job done).
When I was at university years ago I mostly eat on my own, because I was afraid of sitting with strangers, as I would often not say the things they wanted or expected me to say while they were having lunch.
But I should have liked some company all the same, only the older I have got, the more frightened of NTs I have become.
I have one friend, Tanya, who is a police officer and comes to see me every two or three weeks, and phones to see how I am about once a week, but other than that I have no social contact at all. She has invited me to have Christmas with her, which is the first Christmas I shall have spent with someone else since 1989, when I lived in Greenland. We have decided to have a large organic free range duck as the main roast, which Tanya will cook, and I will boil the Christmas pudding in a cloth, and set fire to it. I am really looking forward to it.
Stella
I don't mind eating with other people I know and it does happen sometimes but most of the time I'm eating on my own. A year or so ago, I used to eat in the tea-room because there were some people I knew but they've gone away now.
