Table for one

Eating out alone has its pleasures – but it’s not the only activity you can enjoy on your own

I’ve lost count of the number of people who look at my pityingly when I say that I often head out to lunch – and sometimes even dinner (shock! horror!) alone. Don’t you have any friends, you sad little loser, their eyes seem to say. Does your husband not love you enough to have a meal with you? Why can’t you manage to rustle up even one lunch companion from among the dozens of people you know? 

Of course, they don’t say any of this aloud. Instead their ‘concern’ is expressed in any one of the following ways. Don’t I feel embarrassed and exposed eating a meal on my own? How can it be any fun going out to eat without having someone to share the experience with you? Don’t you miss having someone to talk to you while you are eating? And so on and on and on.

Well, the truth is while I enjoy eating out with my husband (and do so all the time) and have great fun doing my ‘ladies who lunch’ thing with my girlfriends, I also really, really enjoy taking myself out for a meal ever so often. Sometimes, I take along a book that I am currently immersed in, and bury my nose in it as I make my way through starter, main course and coffee. Sometimes I spend my time surfing on the Internet. And then, there are times when I don’t put any barriers between me and the world and simply indulge in one of my favourite pastimes: people-watching.

In fact, I love people-watching while eating so much that I even have my own phrase for it. I call it ‘catching the cabaret’, and as a speculative exercise there is no beating it. Is the teenage couple seated to the left of me breaking up or is it just another regular fight in a volatile relationship? That middle-aged couple seated next to the window? Are they eating in companionable silence because they have been married so long that they have nothing left to say to one another? That group of loud young men having a largely liquid lunch? How many of them will leave the table sober? And why is it that the decibel level of a kitty party group is always higher than that of any other?

But while eating out on my own is a fun thing to do, so too are a whole host of other activities.

Shopping, for one. Most of my friends enjoy going out shopping in a group so that they can have the benefit of other people’s opinions on the things they try one. And they have a point: you can’t really ask a shop attendant, “does my bum look big in this,” and expect an honest answer. But frankly, if you feel impelled to ask that question, then take it from me, your bum does look big in it. As far as I am concerned, my eye is the only one that matters when I go shopping.

I am also one of those people who find browsing in shops and window-shopping a complete waste of time. My modus operandi when I go shopping is to make a list of what I want, make a beeline for it, make my choice, pay up and head home. Spending hours looking at merchandise I am never going to buy – which is what inevitably happens while shopping with a group – is my idea of hell. So, solo shopping trips are what work best for me.

The same goes with exercise, whether it is a yoga or Pilates session or a walk in the park. With both yoga and Pilates I prefer to set my own pace, rather than try to slow down or speed up to keep up with a group of people. And when I am out for a walk, I like the idea of spending some time in contemplative silence or just listening to my own thoughts rather than chattering away with a friend or two.

I also find solitude restorative when I am in the kitchen so cooking, for me, is always a solo activity. After spending the whole day with people, there is something therapeutic about finding yourself alone in front of the stove at the end of the day. There is a certain meditative quality to mindlessly chopping vegetables, stirring a curry or a risotto, or even getting ingredients together to bung into the oven. Turn on some music, pour yourself a glass of wine, and suddenly cooking seems like fun rather than just another chore to get through.

The one thing I haven’t tried my hand at yet is watching a movie alone, though those who do so swear by it. There is no distracting chat from those accompanying you, and nobody steals your popcorn after refusing to order their own. But somehow I don’t think this would work for me. For one thing, a cinema hall is always full of people, even if you have ventured out alone. And for another, these people are always doing annoying things like taking phone calls, or texting or even chatting to one another. So watching a movie in a hall can never truly be a solitary activity.

Which perhaps explains why I have become such a fan of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, which give you the movie experience in the privacy of your home and the comfort of your sofa, where you can binge away to your heart’s content. And where the popcorn is far, far cheaper.