![]() ![]() ![]() Not once did I feel out of place.īut maybe I should rethink that feeling. I was glad I was eating it surrounded by people who smiled when I sat and left me to myself. The meal that followed - an octopus dish, and a strange little wine the bartender recommended - was transcendent, something to be savored. On a recent solo research trip to San Francisco, I picked at random a seafood restaurant humming with activity, and took the last seat at the bar. Eating alone, in a paradoxical way, can get me out of my own head. I start to remember that I’m not alone at all I’m part of a community of people, and most people, believe it or not, are friendly and interesting. Without a dining companion to entertain, I can sit with my thoughts, watch the world around me, eavesdrop on fellow diners, maybe have a conversation with the bartender if I’m seated at the bar. But for me, eating alone in a restaurant is almost meditative, even if I’m just wolfing down a plate of pasta between meetings.ĭining out by myself is a form of self-care, a way to derive immense satisfaction from the experience - the ambience, the flavors and textures, the chatter around me. The history of solo dining, particularly for women, hasn’t always been welcoming, and even now there are some best practices I’ve developed to help me do it well. Yet the joys of eating alone have been documented since ancient times, and I’m happy that it’s never occurred to me to think of solo dining as anything other than an ordinary act. (This fear even has a dubious psychological name: solomangarephobia.) The internet is full of people proudly proclaiming their love of eating alone and extolling its many virtues, often over and against the same assumption of my grandmother and aunts: that solo dining is socially unacceptable, something to be feared. Solo dining has risen sharply in recent years, according to data collected by the restaurant reservation company OpenTable. But a life without eating alone is unimaginable to me. I might have a book with me, or I might not. Though I’ve been with my husband for 18 years, nearly half my life, I spend a lot of time eating alone - while traveling for work, grabbing a bite between appointments, or just because I want to. I’ll be honest: It’s hard for me to wrap my head around any of this, even though history shows that my female relatives’ sentiments come from decades of American practices and prejudices. “Unless they had a book with them,” she added, smiling. One aunt who waited tables at an upscale restaurant said she always felt bad for people who were eating alone, wondering if they were lonely. Other female relatives a generation younger talked about their reticence to eat in a place where they thought they’d be judged by fellow diners, silently pitied as a loser. My grandmother, who’s in her 80s and grew up in the upstate town where they all live, said she’d never do it, that when she was a girl it was frowned upon and it still felt strange to her. At a recent family gathering, the conversation turned to dining, and from there to a common practice of mine: eating alone in restaurants.
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