The Loneliest Table
by: Ulysses Ybiernas ♦ March 14, 2019
There is a particular kind of loneliness that only exists inside a crowded room. I learned this slowly, the way most important lessons arrive, not all at once, but in fragments scattered across years.
In 1995, I began working in the country’s central business district at an internationally renowned bank. I was still quite young, trying to find my footing in the steady rhythm of corporate life. If there was one part of the day I genuinely looked forward to in those early days, it was lunch. Not because of the food, but because of everything that came with it: the easy laughter, the unhurried walks with co-workers to the canteen or a nearby restaurant, and the way conversations drifted naturally from casual topics to life’s larger questions. It was never just a meal; it was a quiet, daily ritual of belonging.
But there was one person I couldn’t help noticing. He was a teller, stationed at the front counters where the public came and went in almost endless waves.
Every lunch break, while the rest of us gathered in clusters and filling tables in the building canteen, we raised our voices over one another’s stories. While he sat alone in one table, unhurried, unnoticing to most, and yet somehow unforgettable to me.
One noontime, he called me over and asked if I could sit with him. Out of simple courtesy, I agreed. What followed was a brief conversation, yet one that would stay with me long after I experienced it myself.
He told me he sometimes envied the way we laughed together, enjoying each other’s company during those midday hours. As a front-liner, he explained, they were never allowed to take lunch together. He and the other tellers had staggered shifts that often left him alone during lunchtime.
He said he could sometimes join the bank officers in the pantry, but sitting among them carried its own kind of isolation. Their conversations revolved around concerns that had little to do with his world. He was with them, but it felt as though he didn’t exist.
I listened. I nodded. But I did not truly understand. At that time, I was still in a relatively comfortable position in terms of my work–life situation. And no one can truly feel empathy for a situation they have never personally experienced.
A few years quietly passed, I became a frontliner myself in one of our branches.
At first, I still found my way to the bank pantry. An elderly woman sold home-cooked meals there, and I came to rely on her for lunch. More than the food, it was her warmth that made the space feel human. Her presence softened the institutional chill. I also formed friendships with staffs from other departments, and I came to value those small, shared conversations.
But when news of bank robberies became more frequent across the country, stricter security measures followed. Outsiders were no longer allowed, and the rules tightened. Her little stall disappeared. And with it, one of the last reasons I had to stay inside during lunches.
As I don't want to eat cold food or food from my breakfast for lunch, I began eating my lunch either in the building canteen or restaurants outside bank premises, alone, most of the time.
On days when budget was tight, I managed to bring food from home. I would return to the bank pantry to take my lunch. But one day I realized, after being away for long, it no longer felt familiar. People had come and gone. New faces filled the tables. And even when a few old colleagues remained, their bonds had tightened into circles that were difficult to penetrate.
It was in the quiet discomfort of those lunches that the lonely teller’s words finally revealed their full meaning to me. I began to understand what he had been trying to describe: the peculiar feeling of sitting in a room full of people whose conversations were never meant for you. You are present, but not included. Visible, but not seen.
At first, I thought it shouldn’t really bother me at all until I realized there was another dimension to it, one more difficult to name without sounding wounded. My consistent absence from group lunches eventually became material for those who had nothing better to do than make fools of themselves. Fabricated rumors began to form, and labels were carelessly attached.
Some have tried to stain my name, not for the sake of truth, but for social acceptance, playing the clown to be noticed, especially this one person who is unforgetful that he comes from rags.
In synchronicity, they attempted to smear a reputation of an innocent man, with the ease of ignorance, simply because he wants to eat alone, in peace.
The cruelty was not loud. It rarely is. It came dressed as humor, wrapped in banter and casual observation. But beneath it, the message was unmistakable: you are outside the circle, and we have decided you will stay there.
They were like fools speaking without understanding, trying to cast stones where they had no right to throw. And yet, there they were, subjecting someone to ridicule, hiding behind indirect jabs, convinced their words were clever. But I saw through them, their cryptic codes fell flat.
Over the years, I have observed how invisible circles form in workplaces and how some reject certain people and quietly exclude others without ever announcing the decision.
I have observed a colleague or colleagues reserving seats at gatherings, even during official functions, saving chairs for one another and forming tight clusters, as though sitting apart might weaken their sense of unity.
During one company function, I noticed several colleagues seated together at a table. Seeing a few vacant seats, I approached them, only to be told that the seats had already been taken. Shortly after, another colleague, who had seated there a while ago and just stepped away briefly and returned, was given the same response. The situation felt both disheartening and exclusionary.
We eventually took seats at a table occupied by high-ranking officers, positions often described as the loneliest, as they are believed to require a certain distance from subordinates to preserve authority and respect. Yet, in reality, we held no such positions. We were simply left to find a place where we could belong to, The Loneliest Table.
While I did not appreciate this behavior, I did not view it with so much malice, as it would potentially destroy my inner peace. I must admit, however, that at times it affected me, a few others too, who later told me about their bad experience.
From my perspective, such behavior is driven by insecurity. They find comfort in numbers, to the point that their sense of safety depends entirely on staying tightly together. That's why they struggle to stand on their own without the reassurance of belonging to a group. One thing is certain, it reflects their fragility and social immaturity, as they derive and solicit their confidence from others.
Nevertheless, that lonely teller’s predicament from several years ago often comes back to me, especially during solitary lunchbreaks. I wish I had listened to him more intently and shown greater empathy when I had the chance. In many ways, he became a prelude to a world I would soon step into.
However, time and experience have a way of helping me understand meanings I do not fully grasp at first. In which, the most interesting part of it is that it teaches me a lesson.
I must honestly admit. At first, eating alone felt awkward to me. I unconsciously took it in a different light, something negative, as though I were someone who had been quietly left out of the world.
Gradually, I came to realize that being alone doesn't necessarilty translates to being lonely. Loneliness and solitude carry differing undertones.
Loneliness is the sharp ache one feels inside when disconnected from others. While solitude, on the other hand, is the quiet state of being alone but at peace with one’s own company.
There is nothing wrong in a person who would like to spend his moments in solitude. Studies even suggest that many individuals discover valuable insights that contribute to their personal growth on such moments. Accordingly, it helps reduce stress, provide emotional clarity, and create a space necessary for deep reflection.
What once felt like an uncomfortable gap in my day, soon became something I looked forward to. Such solitary lunches gave me a break, a room to breathe amid the hectic demands of work.
I found time to reflect, to plan for myself and for life in general, and to observe the world, free from the need to constantly adjust to other people’s moods and dispositions during that brief pause of my busy day.
Those free moments even allowed me to write without distraction, a setting in which my clearest thoughts often emerged. In fact, my stories and best ideas found their way onto the pages of my personal journal like this one.
Most of all, they also allowed me to attend to personal errands, especially for my family's needs.
In essence, they gave me a sense of freedom.
And perhaps that is all for now.
Let me conclude this by saying:
"Although some tables just seat one, I assure you, they are not always the loneliest ones. Because I have been there."
"The worst thing in life is not to end up alone, but to end up with people who make you feel alone."
— Robin Williams© 2019 ET PLUS . articles · All Rights Reserved | My Office Diaries