> Also, trying to get three or more people to agree on a time and place for lunch is less fun than herding cats.

I built a lunch voting website for our Friday company lunch for this very reason. We would spend up to an hour hashing it out on Slack each week, now everyone puts in their votes and it either picks a random one, or if there's a majority it picks that. No more arguments, although there's significantly more horse trading!

As someone who does the same, it's not a forced line. In fact, not talking about work feels far less forced to me. Sure, there could be moments where something is so interesting you want to share it—but that requires talking to someone who won't just stare blankly at you because they lack the requisite knowledge and background to have the conversation.

More often than not, there's nothing so interesting happening with work that I want to talk about it. Before I was self-employed, I frequently hated how going to lunch with work mates meant having to spend time talking about work. It felt like lunch was just another meeting, instead of a break from work. I'd much rather have more meaningful and personal conversation—like, about books, art, traveling, relationships, whatever. Something that elevates us out of our role as workers and focused on our non-working selves. Conversation that helps increase our knowledge and understanding of each other. To be sure, that could mean work-related topics come up. But it gets seriously boring to talk with people who only want to talk shop.

> Haven't you ever had a moment that your work was so interesting that you wanted to share it with someone else in your 'non-work' time?

No.

> talk about what interests you.

I have far more interests than work. Work is what I do to pursue those interests.

Lunch and the end of the day are hard lines between work and non-work specifically to keep my head clear and to not suddenly become the job.