Turn Down Free Food

The Greeks were right about Xenia: once someone gives you food, you become obliged to them.

For the Greeks, as I understand it, this was an explicit, ritualized set of obligations. Xenia involves more than just food, but sharing a meal is the ritualized act that seals the bond: once someone has eaten from your table, they are your guests and you both owe each other "guest friendship." In the Iliad, one of the reasons it's bad that Paris kidnaps Helen is that he was an existing guest-friend of Menelaus'; this meant the Achaeans were obliged to avenge the transgression of the kidnapping, not just permitted to.

But I think food-creates-obligation works as something more primal, beyond any codified obligations: if someone gives you food, and you accept it, you feel a meaningful relationship with them, even in a Zeusless modern society.

One time, on July 4th, I walked the streets of New York with friend-of-the-blog S. and was offered hotdogs and beers by a group of guys who had shut down their restaurant for the afternoon and were giving out free food to anyone who passed by. I don't know exactly what I owe those people but I think of them often and feel like I have a relationship with them that I wouldn't if they'd handed out free balloons. There is something deep and mystical going on here that far, far, far exceeds the cash value of the food, especially in this strange modern time where (for many of us, in much of the world), food is now plentiful and cheap.

I think a lot of corporations have figured this out to their great advantage.

• Big Techs famously realized that employees who earn hundreds of dollars per hour will stay at work many additional hours each day if you give them $30 of free food.
• Political and activist orgs will offer free food at events; some people try to go for the free food without endorsing the message, but I suspect the orgs have done the math on this better than the attendees did.
• Sales teams give lavish dinners to prospects, who then assign contracts worth infinite times more than the food was: this is partly just a principal-agent problem and a form of soft bribery, but I think there's a reason it often involves food.

I remember realizing the importance of all this while having dinner with a startup founder, whose company was in the process of screwing over mine. He was trying very hard to pay for dinner, including by making fun of the venture capitalists who had poured ridiculous sums of money into his enterprise and how he enjoyed wasting their money. I realized in that moment that there was an emotional weight to accepting food from someone that outweighs the mere financial cost: I turned down his money and paid for my own dinner, and shortly afterwards left his service to his great displeasure. I truly think that if I'd accepted his Xenia it would have been harder to do that. Trust the Greeks on this: food is a relationship, so don't accept free food from anyone you don't wish to be bonded to.

p.s. what should we make of paid food, i.e. restaurants? Does paying for the food entirely free us of obligation, or just lessen it? Are we alienating ourselves from a primal relationship in some way by making a potentially-sacred relationship entirely transactional? Your thoughts appreciated....