There's kinda two groups in our dojo and the two groups get on really well; there's a real family feeling to our dojo.

The three seniors and a few other people from the dojo basically live in each others pockets. We're very tight knit, we all went to sixth form college and university together, we train together, in some cases work and live together. Of course that means we all drink together after training and on weekends and such. We often play paintball together. Feels like being in a small, ill disciplined, badly structured but still very dedicated army unit sometimes.

I think this works really well, I'm closer to my dojo than I am to my family, I see them more often, have more in common with them etc. Communication can often be, rather frank, without anyone taking any offense. Which helps; people will turn around to me and tell me that what I'm doing isn't throwing them and I do the same for them.
They're the only people in the world I can say what I like as bluntly as I like and it's taken calmly and vice versa.

If I have a problem, no matter what it is I spit it out and it gets sorted. My Aikido friends can read me like a book, I can't hide anything from them. If somethings wrong, if my depression is kicking in, I know for a fact that I can hide it from my family but the moment I step in the dojo someone will take one look at me and ask me what's wrong.

If Aikido is about connection there's tons of Aikido where I train. I once joked that we are like a disfunctional family and someone said "actually we function better than most families" and I think he was right. That's not to say we don't have friction and issues but we just deal with it.

So I say get as close to the people you train with as you can. I think one thing O-Sensei was getting at is that as humans we've become very detached from each other and that this is very unhealthy. I think we're fortunate in that we daily place ourselves in the hands of others on a physical level and if you can get to the stage where you can do the same on a psychological level the rewards are immense.

I no longer have friends that do not train, but when friends of mine who used not to train started training I found that the relationship almost immediately became much deeper and much more solid.

As for the food thing I think people should share a meal wherever possible. I think there's something deeply significant about sharing a meal.