On eating out alone

I love eating out alone, as well as watching movies alone, taking walks alone, even traveling abroad alone (&#x2F;r&#x2F;solotravel) and so on. It&#x27;s so much more liberating to do things you want to do at the exact time you want to do them without having to wait for anybody to accompany you.<p>At the same time, I&#x27;m not sure why there&#x27;s so much anxiety from the author about doing things alone. As I&#x27;m not one of those people, perhaps I have a hard time understanding it, but the truth is, no one gives a shit about you in their day to day life, so there&#x27;s really no societal pressure that I think the author feels.

I missed that day in school when they went over how you should be ashamed about doing this or that alone in public. I have some friends who are like the author used to be. Those can&#x27;t do anything alone types. Absolutely mystifying to me. Heck, a lot of the time I straight up prefer the company of a good book.

From personal experience, the most awkward stretch of dining solo is the time after ordering and before any reasonable part of the ordered meal is on the table.<p>A drink can be an easy &quot;company&quot;, but if night is busy, it&#x27;s easy to get all wasted before seeing your appetizer.<p>Of course, these days smartphone is a well-accepted company at any table, solo or not.<p>Siri should really split the bill, come on! Enjoyed the ambiance, Ok Google? Now pay up your share or next time you&#x27;ll get muted .

I&#x27;ve known people who have an aversion to doing <i>anything</i> alone in public, even going to the grocery store. It seems to be mostly based on them feeling judged by others.

Eating out alone really hurts. It makes you feel that much more _alone_ because nearly everyone else is with their SO, a party, friend, etc. Bringing a phone is only a distraction to get through waiting for the meal to arrive.<p>I dislike it more than being alone at home.

It may feel a bit weird the first few times, but eventually it feels very natural. Nobody cares. Same thing for traveling.<p>The only place where I don&#x27;t like to go alone are bars. It&#x27;s boring and it feels a bit lonely seeing people partying where you&#x27;re on your own.

As I read somewhere recently:<p>At 20, you worry about what others think about yourself.<p>At 40, you don’t care what others think about yourself.<p>At 60, you realize that nobody was thinking about yourself anyway.<p>Pretty liberating when you face situations like these, which can be uncomfortable at first.

I find this relatable as someone who&#x27;s somewhat introverted, but socially capable. For years, I denied that I had any form of social anxiety - but even in my late twenties when for better or for worse (maybe I&#x27;m letting myself go?) I&#x27;ve decided to stop care about being <i>cool</i> - the fear that I&#x27;ll say something stupid or sound &#x2F; look like a creep keeps me generally away from dining alone.<p>However, this was really only at places where mostly groups of friends &#x2F; couples would dine. I&#x27;ve dated before, but sitting alone in a cool cozy place only seeing couples &#x2F; friends having a good time just makes me feel like a robot.

lol I&#x27;m single and I do this all the time, eat alone and watch movies alone, etc and I thought that was normal until I keep hearing people like this who&#x27;s embarrassed to feel to do those things alone and thinks people who at alone are lonely. now I feel a little insecure eating alone cause I now know what people think about it. sigh I wish I didnt know

I have always preferred eating at restaurants alone to going with a group of people. If I have to go with somebody, I prefer one or two people at most. I also don&#x27;t like to go to restaurants when they&#x27;re very busy, since I feel a bit guilty taking up a whole table to myself when the restaurant is trying to seat lots of customers. Usually if I see there is a line, or am told there is a wait longer than a few minutes, I just leave, and go elsewhere. If I&#x27;m with people, they usually prefer to wait it out and then eat in the crowded, noisy restaurant, which is always a suboptimal experience for me.

I love eating out alone. I used to do a lot of travel for work, and had many a alone meal. It was great to just sit in peace, read, catch up on news, etc. I never saw what the big stigma with eating alone is.

My depressing reaction to this was “wow look at all these people who actually have the option to <i>not</i> eat alone”<p>But seriously, it’s the best. No rush or delay in leaving, I can play a few chess games, and skim the occasional article or paper, and I can go for a walk in the park or drive around a bit after.<p>I try to get breakfast at least once a weekend, and though I sometimes invite friends I usually prefer going by myself as I find it to just be a great way to start the day. I barely even notice the strangers around me.

When I was younger I used to absolutely avoid it, I could just about put up with a fast food place by myself, although I would prefer a drive through where I could sit in my car. Anywhere you needed to be seated and ask for a table for 1 was pretty much out.<p>I definitely felt a stigma from eating alone, it doesn&#x27;t matter how small that stigma was, or even if it was just in my head. My insecurities were amplified by social anxiety. I was single, not by choice, through lack of success mostly due to anxiety &#x2F; insecurity. I felt like everyone seeing me as a young man eating alone would notice me and instantly leap to the correct conclusion I was unhappily single (and the incorrect conclusion I had no friends) and judge me as a failure.<p>I am now older, married with a young child, a chance to eat alone at a restaurant would be a rare welcome opportunity, but asking for a table for 1 is still a little uncomfortable for me. I know most people won&#x27;t notice me, or care in the least bit why I am there. The server will have probably severed 100 lone diners that week with various reasons for being alone and I will not stand out from them in any way. The logic of that is mostly irrelevant and has limited impact on how it makes me feel.

This reminds me of a story about a restaurant seating single guests with cute stuffed animals to counter loneliness: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;firstwefeast.com&#x2F;eat&#x2F;2014&#x2F;04&#x2F;anti-forever-alone-cafe-provides-stuffed-animal-dining-companions" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;firstwefeast.com&#x2F;eat&#x2F;2014&#x2F;04&#x2F;anti-forever-alone-cafe...</a>

Sometimes it&#x27;s nice to get a meal with no dishes to clean up. There&#x27;s no shame in it and frankly most people don&#x27;t notice you, less care about you. You&#x27;re just grabbing a meal.<p>Now if you&#x27;re lonely and eating out alone is stressful, well, it&#x27;s your life. You can make friends or connect with family members.

Before the pandemic, I used to go out alone on purpose just to meet random people. (I&#x27;m married.) I know this isn&#x27;t for everyone, but I got good at it and I enjoy(ed) it. I&#x27;ve noticed however, that this is a skill that can atrophy. It&#x27;s taken me a little while to get back to my old self in public places.

I also hate eating out alone and try to avoid it if I can.<p>I&#x27;ve always ate out with my parents, friends or even strangers (e.g. sitting next to a stranger at the university&#x27;s cantine and making small talk).<p>Curiously I&#x27;ve never realised I hated it until I had to eat out alone for the first time, very late in life. I was doing a job interview in another city, involving an overnight stay and couldn&#x27;t find a take away, for some reason.<p>I wandered into a nice, cozy, dimly lit restaurant, the kind you would go on a typical date or romantic evening, I suppose. I felt really awkward and anxious by being alone. Curious thing.

A nice meal is an experience, and the significance of experiences is amplified by sharing - instead of a taste and texture you had once, almost impossible to describe, it becomes a touchstone of a relationship which can be referred back to for comparison or to recall a time in one&#x27;s life.<p>There&#x27;s a way out. Sharing the experience soon after, possibly with contemporaneous notes, can turns it back into a shared experience. Call it a review if you like.

I have this weird thing where I don&#x27;t eat at all alone. Eating is so social for me I&#x27;d rather not eat at all than eat by myself.<p>I have had terrible time to get over that with my current company, where everyone has different time slots for when they eat. I couldn&#x27;t bear that and I will have to wait until I get back home so I can eat with my roommates.

This person thinks very hard about eating, and being alone while eating. It can also be as simple as eating, seated in a restaurant, by yourself. Why make it more complicated or ritual-worthy than that?<p>This is also one of those things were the &quot;pressures&quot; are self-created. People in restaurants certainly aren&#x27;t shocked if you go in there by yourself.<p>I wonder if they&#x27;ve discovered the joys of going to movie theaters alone, too?

There was a TV commercial some time back. It was from a fast food place, acknowledging that the best hamburgers were found at &quot;sit-down&quot; restaurants, not fast food places, and they said how they hoped to change that reality.<p>While showing numerous men, sitting alone in restaurant booths and at restaurant tables, devouring hamburgers alone.

&quot;Will it be just one?&quot;

Dine Alone: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;open.spotify.com&#x2F;track&#x2F;27X1P8USDRbZ5RNjbbQ9d1?si=9426ec9681b84614&amp;nd=1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;open.spotify.com&#x2F;track&#x2F;27X1P8USDRbZ5RNjbbQ9d1?si=942...</a>

I never really thought about it much but I tend to only get counter service if I eat alone out of habit. Since I’m typically by myself for lunch when I’m working, I’m admittedly missing out on some good dining options.

One of the most annoying things to me is not being allowed to dine alone, lonely or not. Many korean bbq restaurants explicitly require 2 or more people to permit you to dine in, which is annoying as fuck.

I love eating alone in a restaurant, either just thinking, reading a book or watching people.<p>I like spending time with other people.<p>And:<p>I relish spending quality time with me.<p>Or to put it another way: I am great company. Even for myself.

I do it often and am comfortable with it.<p>The only awkwardness about it lasts all of 5 seconds when the wait staff ask you if you need a table for two or are expecting company.

Either get a booth&#x2F;table and bring your laptop&#x2F;iPad&#x2F;newspaper with you, or sit at the bar and either people-watch or make conversation with others.

Our animal ancestry makes us social animals. Afaik eating together is special important for us as a species for bonding.<p>Just fyi, why avoid it when it is so basic and feels good.

I used to not like eating out alone...then I had kids. Now I think its great when I have the chance.

No one wants to be like Steven Glansberg

People need to do hard physical workout and kill the latent anxiety inside. Then who cares if you are alone or not.