91–100 of 103 posts
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. A drink can be an easy "company", but if night is busy, it's easy to get all wasted before seeing your appetizer. Of course, these days smartphone is a well-accepted company at any table, solo or not. Siri should really split the bill, come on! Enjoyed the am…
As I read somewhere recently: At 20, you worry about what others think about yourself. At 40, you don’t care what others think about yourself. At 60, you realize that nobody was thinking about yourself anyway. Pretty liberating when you face situations like these, which can be uncomfortable at first.
Now if you're lonely and eating out alone is stressful, well, it's your life. You can make friends or connect with family members.
I love eating out alone, as well as watching movies alone, taking walks alone, even traveling abroad alone (/r/solotravel) and so on. It'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. At the same time, I'm not sure why there's so much anxiety from the author about doing things alone. As I'm not one of those people, perha…
I don't get why going to movies is seen as a thing you should do with your friends. You're not supposed to be talking during it, and if you are, you're annoying everyone around you. Unless the plan is to go to the movie and then get a meal at which point you can discuss it after. But otherwise, I pretty much only go to movies alone.
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. I dislike it more than being alone at home.
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.
Two people use the same amount of table and significantly less than twice the waitstaff attention as compared to a single person. Singles cost more to serve.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Two people use the same amount of table and significantly less than twice the waitstaff attention as compared to a single person. Singles cost more to serve.
Thank you captain obvious, but the person you are replying to didn't say they didn't understand the reasoning.
It's just really frustrating that there are entire classes of restaurants I can't eat at while on business trip or similar. They will not even just charge me an additional fee or charge me for 2 people (I've asked, and I know how it works/don't need handholding or explanations so they really just need to drop off the meat twice and change the grill once if it's too burnt), just typically get "no we can't do that, minimum 2 people" in response
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't get why going to movies is seen as a thing you should do with your friends. You're not supposed to be talking during it, and if you are, you're annoying everyone around you. Unless the plan is to go to the movie and then get a meal at which point you can discuss it after. But otherwise, I pretty much only go to movies alone.
It's more fun and excitement. It adds a whole new element which you don't get when you go by yourself. Sitting a movie by myself feels dull and lonesome and a lot of effort.
Interesting how the same action can be internalized so differently by different people.
Going anywhere with people adds a low level of stress that is completely avoidable by going alone. And at a movie, once the lights go down, the rest of the audience fades away and it's just me and the screen. Doesn't matter if I'm with friends or complete strangers or even if it's an empty theater other than me.
I have this weird thing where I don't eat at all alone. Eating is so social for me I'd rather not eat at all than eat by myself. 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't bear that and I will have to wait until I get back home so I can eat with my roommates.
I've lived in many different places in shared housing most of my adult life so far, and everyone cooked and ate separately. Thinking back this is true in all the different places I lived - shared meals were exceptional special occasions. Even when everyone I lived with were my friends, each did their own thing.
There were places I visited or stayed a few weeks on travels where the household ate together, which was nice to see, but I've never lived with a group like that. It sounds like it could be nice.