
Jacinda Webber
“Let’s grab a meal,” is tossed around so often it feels like campus shorthand for “hello.” It’s what you say to someone after a good conversation in seminar, or as you bump into them while crossing Old Campus. It’s a phrase so deeply ingrained in campus life that it’s practically instinctive. And yet, grabbing a meal isn’t always as simple as a casual text or running into someone in the dining hall; it’s a logistical operation, a chess game of scheduling, where each meal becomes a colored block nestled in your Google Calendar, carefully slotted between classes, club meetings and study sessions. Everything planned, scheduled and penciled in.
During my first week at Yale, I heard it everywhere. “Let’s grab a meal sometime!” It came from classmates I met in seminars, floormates I ran into while blindly stumbling back to my dorm, even people I barely knew after a five-minute conversation at yet another club info session. I thought it was just something people said, like “let’s hang out” — a suggestion that, more often than not, never materializes. However, I’ve found that at Yale, those words come with weight.
The follow-up always came quickly: “what’s your schedule like this week?”
I’d find myself pulling out my phone, staring at my mostly empty calendar while the person across from me scrolled through theirs — a mess of overlapping colors and blocks of time. “How’s Thursday at 1:15 at Berkeley?” they’d ask, their tone casual, as though planning a meal five days in advance was the most natural thing in the world.
It felt oddly specific for something as simple as lunch, but I didn’t question it. Like any first-year, I was eager to fit into a new culture where even meals were curated with precision. But, after that first week, I started to feel overwhelmed. I’d scheduled meals with so many people that it was hard to keep track of who I’d agreed to meet and where.
By the end of my first month, however, I had fully embraced the culture. My once-empty Google Calendar was now packed with brightly colored blocks labeled “Lunch with X” or “Dinner at Trumbull.” I learned to categorize my meals by residential college, realized that it was best to meet people in the common room prior, and got better at anticipating the exact time it would take to walk from Sterling to Pierson or from Old Campus to Franklin.
There was a strange comfort in the structure. It meant I never had to worry about sitting alone in the dining hall or feeling isolated. Even on my busiest days, I knew I had an hour carved out to sit across from someone and share a conversation over a slice of Berkeley pizza or a scoop of Stiles raspberry sorbet. Scheduling meals ensured I didn’t lose touch with the people I cared about in the chaos of classes, clubs and everything else Yale demands of us.
But, as the weeks went on, I started to notice cracks in the system. Some meals felt rushed, more like a task to check off than a genuine connection. We would glance at our phones mid-conversation, distracted by the thought of our next meeting or appointment. I realized that sometimes, even though we were sitting together, we weren’t really present — both of us halfway in the conversation, halfway out.
The structure of it all made me question what it meant to really connect with someone. Were we meeting because we genuinely wanted to, or because it was the polite thing to do? Was our time together a true exchange, or just an item to check off our respective calendars?
And then there was the pressure. Yale’s meal culture created this unspoken expectation that every relationship needed to be maintained through scheduled meals. If I hadn’t seen someone in a while, I’d feel guilty, like I wasn’t putting in enough effort. A knot of anxiety followed me around: had I neglected our friendship? Did they think I didn’t care? My Google Calendar, meant to keep me connected, started to feel like a scoreboard, a tally of how well I was managing my relationships, adding to the strange fear that if I didn’t book a meal, the connection might slip away entirely.
And yet, for all its flaws, the “let’s grab a meal” culture has its strengths. It’s an acknowledgment of the reality here — everyone is busy. With so many conflicting schedules, the “Let’s grab a meal” culture ensured that I could still see people I cared about, even if it wasn’t as spontaneous as I might have liked. There were moments when it felt like a lifeline — like during finals week, when everything else was chaos, but a planned dinner debrief with a friend was exactly what I needed.
Planning a meal is, in its own way, an act of intention. It’s saying, “I know we’re both busy, but I value this time with you enough to make it happen.”
Now, I try to strike a balance. I still plan meals — I think it’s impossible not to here — but I’ve learned to leave gaps in my calendar, leaving room for spontaneity. Sometimes, I’ll wander into my favorite dining hall without a plan, hoping to run into someone. And sometimes, I’ll text a friend and say, “Hey, are you free right now? Let’s grab a meal.”
And as I look back on the meals I’ve shared here — the ones scheduled weeks in advance and the ones that happened by chance — I’m truly grateful for them all.
The “Let’s grab a meal” culture isn’t perfect, but it’s also uniquely Yale. It’s a reflection of the kind of place this is — a whirlwind of ambition, where everyone is constantly moving but still wants to find time to connect. It’s not perfect, but it’s ours, and while it can sometimes feel forced, it’s also taught me the value of making time for others, of being intentional about the relationships here that matter.