Food for Friends

In my first month in the UK I spent a lot of time dining alone. One particularly lonely April day in Brighton, I found myself tempted by the dessert section of a nice-looking café menu in the street. Excited by the prospect of a hearty meal followed by a decadent dessert, I accepted a seat in the apex of the restaurant for optimal people watching.

However, as I perused the menu, it dawned on me that this restaurant was a) vegetarian and b) called Food for Friends. I sat there fighting back tears of disappointment at the fact that I’d be eating tofu, and of loneliness at the irony at dining at Food for Friends on my own. I gradually became the object of other people’s people watching as the crowds of people glanced in to the nice restaurant only to see a lonely girl crying her eyes out in the window seat. The waitress must have felt sorry for me (or embarrassed for the restaurant!) as she offered me multiple champagne tastings before my meal. The worst part about the whole experience was that the restaurant was absolutely amazing; the best food I’d had in a long time. But it’s not joy unless it’s shared, and it couldn’t be more obvious that I had no-one to share this with.

Each time I walked past Food for Friends after that day, I’d well up, swallow hard, and walk past with my head down. Stupid Food for Friends. Stupid good food that none of my friends will know about. Stupid window seat and stupid people watching.

But today I returned to Food for Friends. With 4 friends. They had come to visit me for the day on their own holidays, and I got to show off Brighton like a born and bred local hosting a tourist group. I barely stopped for breath the whole time, talking their ears off and animatedly recounting my various sad and sorry experiences probably to the embarrassment of my company and very likely to the embarrassment of the restaurant. I parted ways at the end of the day, my heart full and face sore from laughs.

I sat on the train on the way back to Worcester, and thanked God for friends. And for Food for Friends, a place I can now eagerly share with anyone I make friends with (anyone? someone?) while I’m here.

Like I said before, it’s not joy unless it’s shared.