If you eat alone, I'll cry.

And I love you.

little by little is a weekly letter about becoming a better person.

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One time I cried watching an old man eat ice cream alone at a restaurant.

I was 17 and at my first serving job. A man, probably in his 70s, came in during one of my evening shifts. He ordered a bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup, which I promptly made and delivered to him. As I stood behind the server station and watched him enjoy his $1.99 mediocre sundae in solitude, a deep ache bloomed in the pit of my stomach, something like sadness or love. I was witnessing a very intimate moment - someone enjoying themselves in the purest of ways. Before I knew it, my eyes welled with tears while my coworkers giggled at my random display of emotion.

That wasn’t the last time I cried over someone eating alone. In college, my roommate merely mentioned that she saw one of our professors eating soup out of a thermos while sitting by himself in the hallway of the Arts & Communications building. Just hearing that story set me off on a semester-long episode where I could barely talk about that professor without crying.

It’s not that I think eating by yourself is sad or embarrassing or even lonely. I love spending time by myself in public and have eaten many meals alone. But there is a certain privilege in seeing a person be themselves, by themselves. I have come to the conclusion:

The glimpse of someone’s essence makes me love them.

I don’t just experience this with strangers. I always know when I start to fall in platonic love with a friend when I catch a glimpse of “them” and burst into uncontrollable laughter. I can remember as early as the 4th grade cackling at my best friend in gym class. While I don’t remember exactly what prompted my giggle-fit, I can tell you that we were simply walking around a coned-off track in the gymnasium. It could have been something as innocent as her walking while wearing her signature braid. Maybe she made a mundane comment. She was simply being herself. I caught a glimpse of her essence and laughed until tears streamed down my face. Naturally, she didn’t like that I was laughing at her (fair), but how could she not see how hilarious she is?!

The pandemic made us hate people. Ever since we passed the initial “we’re all in this together” phase in March 2020, it’s become every man for himself. Everyone else gets titles like That Asshole or You People. Our phones warn us about Them. There is no empathy for the person who doesn’t live like us. No patience for the person who has a different opinion. We've built our algorithms brick by brick, only to be enclosed in our own echo-chambers.

We forget that we all love ice cream.

What’s scariest to me is that hatred has become such a knee-jerk reaction. Do we even know what we’re hating anymore? Why have words like “feminist” put me in a category that have caused some to literally scoff in my face? Why does the phrase “love is love” conjure up the occasional weird, sardonic laugh? A “you’ve got a lot to learn” look? Our algorithms have built up so much hatred for “the others” that I think we forget what we’re really up against.

We forget that there’s a real person in there with music preferences and a mom who knows she loves banana bread. That he is quick-witted and sorts his socks by color. We don’t know that she dropped out of college to help raise her little brother. That he’s self-conscious about his bald-spot. That they attend jazz concerts, but only because their partner loves going. We don’t know because we don’t see them as people.

John Koenig, author of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, invented the word “sonder,” which describes the phenomenon of “realizing that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.” Pretty freaky realization while you’re sitting in traffic, honestly. Although it’s trendy and touted that we’re all the main characters of our own lives, we have to take our blinders off and realize that “other people” are actual people, too.

So next time you’re ordering your coffee or standing in line at the bank (do we still do that?), take a moment to look around you. Instead of getting upset at the person in front of you with the huge Starbucks order, wonder if they decided to treat their team at work. Instead of becoming frustrated with how slowly the cashier is working, ask her how she’s doing today (I bet it’s been a long week for both of you). If someone has a different opinion than you, resist the urge to stop listening or vilify them. When sitting in traffic on a hot day, imagine the person behind you has an ice cream cake sitting in the passenger seat (ok, that one was just for fun).

Take it down a notch. Don’t ratchet up the stress so quickly. Why is your first reaction hatred? Are you really in that big of a rush? We’re all just people doing our best, and we’re not all out to get you.

And if you happen to be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of someone’s essence, a stolen moment of “them” in their purest form, capture it in your mind. Commit to memory what it looks like to be having a human experience.

It might just bring you to tears.