Defining Dinner

Sometimes I wonder if I just had dinner, or if it was lunch. Seeing as how I wake somewhat late on weekends, I would define it as lunch, by my standard. Who cares about what society says about when dinner really is. If it's the second meal of the day, I'd call it lunch. By my definition, there are generally 3 proper meals in a day, even if the meals are voluntarily skipped (in which case it's simply a skipped proper meal). Therefore, the first meal is breakfast (regardless when you wake), the second is lunch, and the third is dinner.

Then, out of curiosity, I tried to find out just when the three meals were, in other cultures and other eras. I was fairly surprised to find that the meal timings were hardly as ordered as they are today, and in fact three was really quite an arbitrary number anyway. It just so happens that the current culture simply favors having three meals at these rather specific times. I expect that the timings would shift yet again in the next 50 to 100 years or so. Perhaps the trend would be towards 5 mini meals instead. Or 7. Who knows. Maybe they like prime numbers. Anyway, that said, I now find nothing wrong with defining my mealtimes as I like to. After all, if humanity in general can't really make up their minds over just when a proper meal is taken, I see no reason why I can't concoct my own definitions. And I'm standing by my definitions till I change my mind. So there.