# the worst part of living alone is being your own lunch lady

- Link: https://tacobout.online/2026/09/06/living-alone-cooking-for-one-lunch-care/
- Published: 2026-09-06T17:00:00-05:00
- Author: schwegler

there are a lot of luxuries associated with living alone. the thermostat becomes
a direct democracy with one voter. the television is never mysteriously left on 
a channel showing men discussing golf. every horizontal surface can temporarily 
become a place where mail lives.

then lunchtime arrives, and the republic collapses.

> you know what sucks the most about being an adult who lives alone? having to always
> make yourself foodi love cooking but would love for someone to make me lunch right
> now instead is, i guess, what i'm saying
> — [schweg, (@schwegler.lol)](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:djguxreovfe4bkm7sizg2kxk?ref_src=embed)
> [2026-09-05T17:51:17.327Z](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:djguxreovfe4bkm7sizg2kxk/post/3mus264k47k25?ref_src=embed)

i posted this because i was hungry, tired, and confronting the deeply unfair fact
that being an adult who lives alone means the person responsible for making me lunch
is, once again, me. apparently this was not a private grievance. within a few hours,
more than a hundred people had liked it, several had reposted it, and the replies
had become a small support group for people who would happily cook a beautiful dinner
but cannot be expected to manufacture enthusiasm for a sandwich at 12:47 p.m.

## the meal is not the hard part

i like cooking. this is important because otherwise the obvious solution would be“
you do not like cooking,” and we could all go home, except i am already home, which
is the problem.

the exhausting part is being the entire food department. i decide what sounds good,
notice what is missing, make the list, buy the ingredients, remember the ingredients
exist, cook them before they become a damp historical record, portion the leftovers,
wash the dishes, and later discover that the container i confidently labeled “lunch”
contains half an onion and no lunch.

![A homemade meal arranged on a plate](https://i0.wp.com/tacobout.online/wp-content/
uploads/2026/09/homemade-food-for-one.jpg?resize=1920%2C1440&ssl=1)

Photo: [94rain / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homemade_food_9.jpg)(
CC BY-SA 4.0)

when another person makes you food, even something ordinary, the meal arrives carrying
a tiny amount of care. somebody noticed you would need to eat before you became 
irrationally angry at a drawer. they made a decision on your behalf. they performed
several boring steps, and then handed you the result. the grilled cheese is not 
valuable because you lack the technical credentials to melt cheddar. it is valuable
because, for fifteen minutes, you were not the project manager of your own continued
existence.

## independence has a lot of administrative fees

living alone is often described as either perfect freedom or a haunting black-and-
white sequence from an antidepressant commercial. mostly, it is neither. mostly,
it is nice, punctuated by moments when you would like another person to be in charge
of one extremely small thing.

not your finances. not your emotional future. just lunch.

this is one of the quieter things people miss when they live by themselves: not 
constant company, but ambient care. a cup of coffee already started. somebody asking
whether you want anything while they are up. leftovers saved because another person
remembered you liked them. these gestures are so small that they barely register
when they happen, and so large that their absence can become the entire shape of
an afternoon.

![A dining table set with plates, glasses, and silverware](https://i0.wp.com/tacobout.
online/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/set-dinner-table.jpg?resize=1920%2C1440&ssl=1)

Photo: [Danbold / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Set_dinner_table.jpg)(
public domain)

the standard advice is meal prep, which is practical, sensible, and emotionally 
identical to receiving a calendar invitation from your past self. i support meal
prep. i have also opened a neatly organized container on wednesday and felt personally
managed by the version of me who made it on sunday.

delivery solves a different problem. it gets food to the house, sometimes by showing
a tiny bicycle circle making choices no human driver would make. but ordering does
not quite reproduce the feeling either. the app has not been thinking about me. 
the app would sell the same pad thai to a raccoon with a valid credit card.

## make somebody lunch

the response to my post made the request feel less like loneliness and more like
a broadly neglected form of friendship. we have made dinner into an occasion and
brunch into a municipal festival, but lunch remains a clerical task performed near
a keyboard.

maybe “can i make you lunch?” should be a more common social offer. not a dinner
party, not a reservation, and not an event requiring shoes that hurt. just come 
over. i have bread, you have soup, and between us we can briefly create a household
where neither person has to do every job.

until then, i will continue cooking for one, which is still cooking for somebody.
unfortunately, that somebody is an unreliable supervisor who keeps wandering into
the kitchen, opening the refrigerator, and acting surprised that no staff have arrived.