OPINION: The importance of Brunch with friends during a global pandemic

Photo of a rose lemonade from Butter Cafe courtesy of Sikes.

Ren Sikes | Opinions Editor

One of the many experiences that you only seem to experience during adulthood is brunch with friends.

I can’t be certain if there was just no time for it during high school, or if there were other forces at play, but I rarely ever had brunch with my friends. It was only just a week ago that I realized what I was missing out on. 

My friend Maddy and I decided last Sunday that we wanted to get brunch together. We went to the Butter Cafe on Brown Street – which was very good mind you – and we drove down and got a table. There was a little bit of a wait, but we got in relatively quickly. We both ordered pancakes and I got the most beautiful rose lemonade. The service was great, and the people were very nice. The important part of this experience was the great environment to just catch up. 

With college being back in full swing, there isn’t a whole lot of time to hang out and catch up one on one. As someone who experienced the isolation of COVID-19 on campus last year, I have learned just how important it is to have social interactions, especially with friends. While having a get together with friends and roommate is nice, sometimes you just need to hang out with that one person. I hope that everyone has a certain friend that they can hang out with under any circumstances, because it is an amazing experience. 

Maddy and I had the opportunity to talk about everything under the sun, from relationships to classes and professors we really liked or disliked. Even just talking about what we wanted to get for dinner that day. Brunch was a great opportunity to catch up at the end of the week, and reflect on what we had done or learned. It was also a nice cool down, and I felt ready to take on the following week after my recharge at Butter. 

Brunch with friends can consist of just you and your best friend, or a large group of people; what matters is the connection you get from it. I hope to make brunch a reoccurring experience throughout this year, because it helped tremendously. The simplicity of going to a restaurant and just enjoying your time there seems so foreign in the midst of a pandemic, but maybe now that things are slowly going back to normal, social interactions can, too. 

Brunch with friends may be something that I only just now experienced, but I am glad that I discovered it when I did. I challenge you to reach out to a friend or a few this week and invite them out to brunch, or make it a whole activity where you make the food yourself. Just get together, with no expectations or requirements. Just have fun. Catch up. You will not regret it.

Isolation is so prominent in these times, and even with in-person activities coming back it can be hard to find the motivation to put yourself out there. So make it easy on yourself and find a few people you can be yourself around and just have a pancake breakfast. It will make a world of difference. 

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