Dining Alone

One of the first things that I really struggled with when I started working on remote mine sites and living in remote mining camps was watching people eating alone. Upon seeing such desperately lonely soles I very much wanted to grab the opportunity to wander over, pull up a chair and kick-start a bit of friendly banter. I possibly would have too, were I not constantly in the pockets of my work crew and they in mine. 

Lets be clear though: quite often these loners did not necessarily really look like they were wanting for company but, as a biologist, I know that humans are a gregarious bunch and a lone diner just looks to me like one of those bored and despondent primates in the old concrete and iron zoo exhibits that you just want to reach out and pat!

Strangely enough it did not take very long before I became one of those stoic and stand-off-ish primates buried in a bowl of minestrone soup, with mains, desert and a sweet late evening snack placed adjacent in the appropriate rank and file. It had got to the point where I very much preferred good food to bad company and I guess that is no real surprise. In the field the days are long and when you spend 12 hours a day with your colleagues you really don't want to spend your nights with them as well.

And then tonight, as I sat in the mess hall at Cape Lambert and looked around me a fog of lament and pity descended upon me. There I was, not too early for dinner and not too late, but very alone. This massive dining hall that only a year ago would have been a writhing, seething mass of mining personnel was a ghost town. That boom-time vibe and energy of wealth and prosperity that we  all became so accustom too, and consequently took for granted, has been extinguished by the great mining bust.

To those of you in that dining hall tonight there are two things you very much need to do; the first is rejoice the fact that you have a job and a wage to send home to your loved ones and then you need to drag all your tables and chairs together so you can enjoy each others company. Who knows how long it will be before all of us are dining alone by default.