Food has a way of revealing more than hunger. In many workplaces, lunch is just a break. But where I work now, meals aren’t only about eating, they’re about belonging. Who you eat with says something about where you stand. Invitations to lunch aren’t casual; they’re symbols of acceptance, gestures that quietly mark who is “in” and who is “out.”
I call her the lunch lady for a reason. When I first started this job, she was the only person who invited me out to eat without an agenda. She broke the silence, made me feel welcomed when the initial warmth of the workplace quickly turned cold. Her first invitation mattered. It told me: You belong here. Which is why, months later, it cut so deeply when she deliberately skipped me.
From the very beginning, my location supervisor jokingly cautioned me about “who I hung around,” warning me not to pick up bad habits. Though she and the lunch lady often joked back and forth, beneath the banter there was a rigid hierarchy. And within that hierarchy, the lunch lady and another coworker—whom I call the triangulated flying monkey—were treated as “lesser.” They asked a lot of questions for clarity, something I recognize in myself as neurodivergent traits. But instead of support, I often heard them dismissed as the “dingbats” of the office.
I’d already been invited to lunch once before—by the office bully, whom I call Negative Nag. At first, she was warm, pulling me into her circle that included her closest friend (the Friend of Nag) and the triangulated flying monkey. But when I later chose to go back to eating alone, the warmth disappeared. Overnight, her friendliness turned into silence. The unspoken message was clear: I would only belong if I complied with her control. Autonomy matters too much to me for that. So, lunches with her crew were never going to be my reality, and I was fine with that.
But then, I watched the lunch lady – the one who had once offered genuine welcome – gradually fold into Negative Nag’s inner circle. I saw it happen in real time: loud gestures, exaggerated praise, and love bombs that drew her in. Once she melted under that flood of attention, I knew the trust between us was gone.
That’s why the day she skipped me stood out so sharply. She went around the office, collecting everyone’s lunch orders, stopping at each cubicle to make sure nobody was left out … everyone except me. She looked right past me, pen in hand, moving on without hesitation. My presence was visible, but unclaimed.
To an outsider, this might sound small – a missed lunch order. But in that office, lunch wasn’t just food. Lunch was about alliances, favoritism, and silent power plays. Being skipped wasn’t about hunger. It was about being erased.
I could have spoken up: “Hey, did you forget me?” But I knew better. This wasn’t about food. It was about perception. Speaking up would have only confirmed their goal: to show me I wasn’t included. So, I sat quietly, holding my peace.
Later, the sting returned like a bruise pressed too hard. That’s what exclusion does … it lingers long after the moment passes. Yet I reminded myself: my worth is not – and will never be – defined by who chooses to invite me to a table.
Eventually, the location supervisor noticed I hadn’t been asked. When she stopped and asked me directly if I wanted anything, Negative Nag jumped in with her loudest voice: “Did you ask her if she wanted anything?” It was performance. They all knew I’d been deliberately excluded. The supervisor’s agitation showed as she snapped for them to be quiet and turned back to me. I simply said, “No thank you. I’m good.” And I was good.
Because here’s what I realized: exclusion is rarely about the person being excluded. It’s about the insecurities, fears, or politics of the people doing the excluding. Some exclude because they feel threatened. Others want control. Still others follow cliques to feel powerful. None of that changes who I am.
Sometimes life teaches its hardest lessons in the most ordinary settings. Mine came one morning at work, where a skipped lunch order revealed so much more than food. If you’ve ever been left out, overlooked, or treated like you didn’t exist, hear this: your value is not diminished by someone else’s blindness. You are still you – whole, worthy, and resilient.
That day, I chose silence. Not the silence of defeat, but the silence that says: I see what you did, and I refuse to let it undo me. Exclusion may sting, but resilience rewrites the story.
When all was said and done, the atmosphere shifted. Something had been exposed that could no longer be hidden. I saw guilt in the eyes of the location supervisor, the Friend of Nag, and the flying monkey. But the lunch lady could not meet my gaze. Negative Nag’s smirk said everything about her “win.” Yet my reaction was unfazed. I carried on, ate lunch alone as I always had, and did my work. Because the truth had been revealed – and I knew who I was, with or without a seat at their table.
My Voice Unchained 