A post by Alain de Botton on the Guardian Word of Mouth blog:
“Our modern failure to properly connect eating with conviviality is sometimes manifest in restaurants. The noise and activity of restaurants typically suggests a refuge from the urban anonymity that surrounds them. With people in such close proximity, we can plausibly imagine that the barriers between ourselves and others will be eroded. But in reality most restaurants make no moves to present us to one another, they have no mechanisms for dispelling our mutual suspicions or for fracturing the clans into which we are segregated. They never extend the circle of our affections.