Here is a little red rose for you!
People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?
-Thich Nhat Hanh.
Take your lunch and simply be proud of your lunch. Check back with how many people come to you and say: Aww you bring your lunch, I should too, buying lunch everyday get’s expensive.
And let us know 
Sounds like an internal inhibition. Try drinking heavily.
Ummm… I don’t know where you went, but we didn’t have any sort of social stigma about buy vs. bring. I never once bought my lunch in H.S. and you can clearly see how cool I am right? Nevermind, don’t answer that. My point is that even if you had some sort of stigma at YOUR high school, that doesn’t mean that all the kids at the college cafeteria had that same experience at THEIR high school or think the same way you do.
Instead of brewing coffee in your office, you might try brewing it at home and bringing a travel thermos in your briefcase. Note–it has to be an all-metal vacuum bottle; the traditional glass ones can break en route. Bringing it from home saves you the trouble washing up the coffee maker, carafe, etc., in that tiny office sink.
I couldn’t bear to brown-bag it at my last job; they didn’t give us a lunch room or anything, so there was no place to eat but at one’s desk.
In some weird way I totally get the OP. I think it may have something to do with parents who scrimp and save and buy the generic brand while the ‘cool’ kids get Lunchables (yuk).
Just get some Philippe Starck tupperware!
I really have no idea who said it, and I’m going to butcher the quote but:
“The sooner you realized just how little people think about you, the sooner you’ll stop caring what they think.”
Honestly, the other folks on campus are worried about exams, boyfriends/girlfriends, pregnancy scares, STDs, sick reletives, etc. They really couldn’t give two craps about what you eat for lunch. Use your cute bag, bring your tasty lunch and if anyone actually says anyting about it, give them a look like “Duh, of course I bring my lunch - ALL the cool kids do!”
Really though, I’m willing to bet a dollar that the amount of time people other than yourself spend thinking about your lunch is rapidly approaching nil.
The guy I shre the coffeemaker with and I have found another way to avoid the trouble of washing up the coffee maker int he tiny office sink. It is simple - we never clean it! 
(I fully expect to find a biohazard symbol affixed to my office door one day!)
That’s easy: Store your lunch in a metal lunchbox with a picture of a cartoon, television, or movie character from the 80’s. Personally, I’d recommend something like Knight Rider, The A-Team, or Gremlins, but I don’t know how well that crosses gender lines. Also, I’m pretty sure that it’s a scientifically proven fact that the grinning, cigar-chomping visage of George Peppard makes Doritos taste 12% cheesier.
I suspect that my husband would be thrilled to death to get a Superman lunch box. I also suspect that he would use it every day. You know, those kids lunch boxes are too small for a day’s worth of food - we need to invent adult lunch boxes, with cool pictures on them. I don’t want no black cooler bag - I want Wonder Woman! Maybe you do need a lunch box, RedRoses. 
(If you sit down and add up the cost of buying food all day, every day, that number alone might make you feel a lot better about bringing lunch from home.)
Ever since I heard about bento boxes, I’ve wished I had to carry a lunch every day just so I could get one. Googling should turn up about a bazillion kinds (here’s one example), and I know they’ve been discussed here.
It’s a Japanese concept: basically a little divided container where you can tuck in all sorts of tasty things. Much neater than ye olde bologna sandwich and a bag of Fritos. They come in some nifty designs.
Bento Boxes even come in cool wooden designs. 
It took me until my late 30s to get this. Dayum.
Seriously, think about it. Are you looking around, sneering to yourself about what other people are eating/wearing/talking about? Chances are, unless it’s outrageously Mohawked pink hair or pants hanging down to the knees, no. You’re in your own little world, concetrating on getting from Point A to Point B without hurting yourself.
So flip it around. You’re not in junior high anymore. Most peole have matured, and could care less if you sipped Campbell’s Condensed Soup from the can, unheated.
A friend of mine at work has a PowerPuff Girls lunchbox. I think it’s cute, but unless I actually see it, I don’t think about it.
I eat my lunch at my desk every day, and occasionally will treat myself out at Sweet Tomatoes. I bring my lunch in a felted bag that I knitted myself.
I think once you stop worrying about what other people think, the sooner you’re free.
Bring your lunch in whatever mode of transport you want, and fret no more.
Vintage lunchboxes are all the rage and can be purchased on Ebay. You’ll be the Queen Bee at your lunch table.
It took me a few times of buying my food on campus to realize how awful it truly was before I started bringing my lunch everyday. Overpriced, bland junk. Plus I had to wait in line for it.
I have a little lunch cooler thing, too, and I hate carrying it. Not because I feel like a dork, but I feel like a pack mule or something with my bookbag/backpack plus a lunch cooler. My backpack isn’t large enough to fit my lunch cooler inside, and I’ve forgotten to pick the lunch bag up after class a few times (so I had to skip eating lunch, as there was another class in that room and I wasn’t about to interrupt it to grab my lunch sack).
I already have a backpack, so I started planning my food around things that I could fit in my backpack. I do have access to microwaves, though, so it is usually leftovers from the night before. I haven’t died (yet) from the fact that I don’t keep my food in a cooler-type bag, so it works for me.
I’ve been out of college for a while, but I don’t recall any stigma to anyone brown bagging their lunch. To the extent that I even noticed it, my thought was usually “I guess that they have access to a kitche, and got up early enough to make something”.
I brown bag my lunch as an adult whenever I get the chance and have leftovers. My wife does the same as does much of her office.
In general I agree with all the posters who say that nobody cares or even notices you.
However, there is one class of person that has noticed you: other people who feel self conscious about bringing their own lunches and are relieved to see someone else do it too!
This used to be the only reason I noticed other people eating alone in restaurants when I was on business trips. Otherwise, no-one cares!
No Way! You have to go completely the opposite way. Try to make it as absolutely dorky as possible. Laugh. And have fun. You’ll meet the greatest people that way.
My Little Pony Lunchbox
Hawaiian Lunch Shirt
The Spork!
Film Class is the perfect time to wear one of those Petzl headlamps so you can see your snacks better.
Honest to God, if you come across some one who thinks you’re not cool because you brought your lunch, it’s better to know immediately. F’ em.
And eat what you like.
I wish I had a cool lunchbox. 
St. Obamasburg… St. Pete? From your posts, if I have the city right, I’m guessing you’re taking classes at USF? If so, no worries, you’ll be fine…
I, on the other hand, am about to begin my first day as a grad assistant at UT. The kids are most likely gonna laugh at me anyway, because I’m… well… dorky. But just to be sure, I will be bringing my own food instead of eating at the cafeteria and riding my bike instead of zipping around in some shiny sports car like those wealthy youngsters…
Agreed on your needing to get over worrying what others think about it, and agreed you simply need to start carrying and you’ll find you don’t worry much after a couple of day.
But getting started can still be daunting, so here’s a trick I’ve used to get myself over the hump of starting a new habit: Bribe yourself.
Think of something you want, something you consider a bit too indulgent/frivolous to feel good about buying right now. Preferably something that cost about $100 bucks. New perfume? Nifty new shoes? That season of Whatever on DVDs?
Settle on something. Really settle, don’t leave it vague. Find out exactly how much it will cost. Find some visual reminder of it – a magazine ad, print out a web picture, draw your own, take a photograph. Attach the image to a suitable container, like an empty jar.
Now, every time you do the task – in this case, pack AND eat your lunch – put a $5 bill into the container. Even if you give yourself one day a week to ‘treat’ yourself to a purchased lunch, you’ll have $20 in the jar at the end of the week. $40 after two weeks. $100 in just five weeks.
As soon as you have enough in the kitty, go buy your rewards and glory in it.
Okay, you may actually spend a bit more than usual this first month, having to pay the kitty as well as buy lunch fodder (though leftovers can be great) the point is that by the end of doing this for a month you will be well over any embarrassment AND psychologists say that if you do something for 21 days it will become a habit and thus relatively painless to maintain.
Or, heck, pick out a new reward and continue to bribe yourself. That works, too.