Eating lunch by yourself isn’t a verdict on your worth. It’s lunch.

One table, one meal, forty minutes. Your mind turns it into evidence because school is arranged so that where you sit looks like a public score, but the score is imaginary and the meal is just food. People eat alone on a given day for reasons that have nothing to do with being wanted: a shifted schedule, a project due, a need for quiet. None of it is a measurement of you.

If it happens this week, let it be ordinary. Bring something you like, take the time back, and see whether it can be the easy part of the day rather than a test.