Free Food Effect

The Free Food effect is a phenomenon that occurs when one person takes the first step, which leads to an avalanche of people.

Whenever you see free food left for a group of people, many times no one will go near it until the first person takes the plunge and takes something from the plate. The same effect happens at grocery stores and other places of retail. The entire building can seem devoid of people, until one person steps up to the counter. Like cockroaches, people crawl out of the wood works, causing a massive pile up.

This leads to impatience and irritation, but one has to wonder why this happens, almost every time. Its either a coincidence of timing (everyone happens to be at the same place at the same time requiring the same service), the same line of thinking (everyone believing everyone else won't be there, so its a good time to go) or evil government plotting (Big Brother is watching you)

Not to sound paranoid, but I'm going with the third option. More research needs to be put into this. Someone needs to take that first step, and I'm sure within a week it will have its very own scientific name and Wikipedia article. Free Food effect in full effect.

This particularly line of thought is dedicated to Proper Cathy. No, you still can't use it for a college thesis.