A person can be hungry for company and mistake the feeling for a reason to cook more.

Loneliness and appetite can feel remarkably similar from the inside. The pull toward the kitchen, the cooking of more than anyone needs, the wish for something to fill an evening: these can all be a need for company arriving in the wrong vocabulary. The body is not always precise about what it is asking for.

When the urge to eat comes with a restlessness that food does not settle, try naming the alternative before acting. Call someone, or go where people are, and see whether the pull changes. Sometimes it will not and you were simply hungry. But it is worth checking, gently, without turning it into a rule about yourself.