Cohousing-L Mailing List: Meals

[Rod Lambert (rod]

I think Igor's experience is fairly common. I often hear that sentiment
expressed at meals especially if there's a lot of noise and commotion which
is common. Some people thrive in that environment, some don't. I'm aware of
a number of people who don't even come to the meals because of it. Some of
us have tried "co-dining" on a few occasions but it seems to fizzle out
eventually. Many of the people who don't come often prefer to have a few
people over for dinner in a more intimate, conventional way.

Rod Lambert
EcoVillage at Ithaca, NY











*>>>Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2015 20:48:13 -0400 From: iggypopsa1 [at] aol.com
<iggypopsa1 [at] aol.com> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
<cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Meals (Igor Cerny)
Message-ID: <14fce7932c8-486f-bbd8 [at] webstg-m08.mail.aol.com
<14fce7932c8-486f-bbd8 [at] webstg-m08.mail.aol.com>> Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=utf-8 I hear and read so often that community meals are the
lifeblood or the core of community life and I often struggle with this
concept (and maybe because deep down I'm an introvert?).  For me, I find
that the depth with which I can connect with a person varies inversely to
the number of people there are at the table.  So, for me, if I'm sitting
with 1 or 2 other people, it seems that I can more easily find out about
what's really going on with another person versus when sitting at a table
of 6-7 people it seems that the conversation tends to stay a little more
(for lack of a better term) "superficial."  Do others find this to be the
case, and if so, are there creative ways that communities have addressed
this phenomenon?  For example, do some communities have large tables as
well as smaller tables for meals? Igor Cerny*