The Kiddush Socialization Experiment

I was reminded recently of the different kinds of social groups there were in high school and how they viewed each other.

When I met the last guy I was dating, it turned out that through Jewish Geography - a.k.a. 6 degrees of me, we discovered we went to the same high school at the same time. However, we hung out with very different people, and were never friends. Despite this fact, I still recognized him from school (I'm pretty good with faces) but he did not know who I was. He did "hate" the people I hung out with despite not knowing any of us (I associated with some of the smokers. A habit I am glad to have tossed many years ago).

This got me thinking. How could he hate me and not even know me? He probably couldn't have picked me out of a police line up. But even though we weren't friends, I knew who he was and didn't hate him. Ironic?

So when I was at Shul and  the congregants sat for the end of Sabbath Kiddush, I noticed that everyone was sitting at one of two tables. One was the 'fun' table with most of the men, and the 'serious' table had the Rabbi and RD with one or two others. Week after week, same thing. Same people, exact same tables (take into consideration there are about 4 or 5 tables in the room). Last week someone made a comment how this is the way it always is, the `cool` table and the `riff-raff`. This didn't sit well with me either. This is synagogue, for crying in the mud.

Time for an experiment!

So this past Saturday, when everyone was getting their nibbles, I sat at a table by myself. There were one or two people at the other regular tables, but I decided to place myself in between the two and see what would happen...

Just as I thought, my buddy M sat beside me as he didn`t like me being by myself. To my delight and surprize, the RD sat with us! Our little table of three. We ate, we chatted, we joked. It was nice. No cool or not cool, serious/fun, it was just nice. Labels and cliques be damned!

I have always marched to my own drum, hung out with whomever I liked, dressed the way I wanted, etc.. I think they should just put the tables together and forget this segregation nonsense. Perhaps I`ll just stand next week. We`ll see. Either way, my experiment was a success.

Baby steps....