Funny, I actually saw lots of people bring their family to work for dinner when I was at Google, it's pretty common actually.

That's both cool and a bit sad.

Imagine not having kids or a wife every year of your career.

There are a lot of unmarried people too.

Sure, but imagine eating all your meals at work. Your existence would be work, eat 3 meals, commute, sleep at home.

For me getting home before dinner would be a massive plus to getting a free meal.

Cut out the commute and sleeping at home with our latest perk, the sleep pod!

(/s)

I did that for a while, but then I was also in midst of a crumbling relationship so it was a way to give each other space.

The dinner is also often relatively early, so you still have quite a lot of time after the commute (granted, if your commute is 1+ hour then it's far from a dream routine).

What I like is having the option, for example I had a late sports club that was close to work, so it was more interesting to grab a quick bite and stay there to go to the club and return home after.

I lived close enough to work that I could go home and then walk back.