A Seat at the Table
The Truth about Middle School Hierarchy
My friend Barbara lost her husband last year, and has been feeling her way through life on her own.
Living in an assisted living apartment complex, when Covid closed the dining room, Barbara felt isolated. She was happy when it re-opened, but found she was also stressed. The source of her anxiety was as a single person, successfully finding a place to sit. She might approach a table and be welcomed, or people might get up to leave as soon she sat down, or she might be told the seat was being saved for someone else. Each of these things had happened to her.
One night last week she got to dinner late and the only empty chair was at what she dubbed The Beautiful People Table. She walked over, expecting to hear oh, we’re just about to leave, or sorry, that seat is taken. To her relief, they greeted her warmly.
Barbara knows her way around chit-chat. She worked in alumni relations, and is skilled at sailing a conversation across the surface. But she didn’t. She spoke of her relief at being welcomed, and how worked up she gets every day walking into the dining room, looking for a place to sit.
They told her they felt the same way. Apparently, even the Beautiful People got butterflies in their stomachs. Many of them just gave into their social anxiety and stayed in their apartments.
What Barbara’s story brings up for me is this simple truth: we never really age out of middle school. Very few of us sail into cafeterias or dining rooms or public spaces solo, with instinctive confidence. Nothing, not acquired wisdom or enviable wardrobes, insulates us from the lingering terror of loneliness and rejection. But that’s okay. Turns out the fretters and the cool kids are, and always have been, one and the same.