“You’re going alone?” they ask as I’ve one foot out the door on my way to a restaurant.

“I can join!” is said in a reassuring tone as if I’m being shipped to war and need back up.

“You want to go alone?” is accompanied with a confused expression.

Dining out for a solo meal can be an unsettling experience if you choose to let it be. You could mistake the waiter’s tone of “Table for 1?” as judgement instead of accepting it as a standard enquiry. You could look around at the couples and friends laughing together instead of indulging in the luxury of having time to yourself. You could worry about what you appear to be, instead of simply being.

Enjoying and sharing meals with family and friends is one of life’s greatest joys and a way to connect with one another. Yet, I know if someone started picking at MY PLATE from across the table, I would be more confused than Joey in Friends. And I’ve no doubt the rest of my family would also be on-edge, guarding their meals at the prospect of invasion.

A massive part of Irish history is the famine, so it’s no wonder we might have transgenerational trauma passed down in our relationship with food; hyper focused on filling the fridge, then eating anxiously as if we might not be fed for weeks. (Blindboy frequently analyses this on his podcast). As a kid, my grandparents often told me to “Think of the kids in Africa” if I couldn’t finish my dinner. I believed it was a noble thing to eat every crumb off my plate. What was better? Asking for seconds. But is there a need to encourage kids to eat more than they feel comfortable with? Nowadays, there’re more people dying from obesity than hunger. (Referenced by Yuval Noah Harari in Homo Deus)

Screens have become an extra guest at the dinner table in many households, easing the pressure to communicate. There is a large amount of psychological research showing children who grow up eating meals while watching screens are more likely to overeat and become overweight than those who don’t. The reason why? Because we are mindlessly consuming for comfort, instead of consuming for taste and nutritional value.

So why are we quick to judge people who consciously and comfortably sit alone in public settings when it’s become a new norm to eat meals staring at a screen in a dark room?

In many traditional movies, the person who goes out alone is stigmatized as a loner, a reject, or someone who’s been stood up. In traditional Irish society, it would have been rare for a woman to order a ‘man’s drink’ like pints of Guinness, nevermind sit in a bar ALONE. These females could be labelled as ‘promiscuous’, ‘an alcoholic’ or simply ‘an oddball’.

Yet, many modern self-help and psychological books reiterate how important it is to spend time alone in order to “find yourself”. How can we know how we are really feeling when we only go out in public as part of a group? How can we “find ourselves” when we only spend time alone in our rooms, consuming everyone else’s information on Instagram/Tik Tok which tells us what’s popular to like/dislike.

This is why being alone outdoors without a device is healthier than being alone in your room behind a screen. Going to social settings or public places solo might seem scary, but it’s generally a ‘good kind of scary’. Author and Influencer Trisha Lewis mentioned a key component to her eating disorder was hiding behind a screen when she was eating on her own in a café instead of looking at the people around her and the food in front of her. Being aware of your surroundings will also help you become aware of how you are feeling.

Advantages of going to a cafe/restaurant/bar/public setting alone:

1. Mindfully focusing on whether you like what you’re eating/drinking.
2. Being comfortable with being alone in public. Doing this regularly makes leaving the house a lot easier when you aren’t in the mood for being around people but want to get out of your room.
3. You can meet new people (if you want to).
4. It can feel nice to not need someone else to be with you.
5. Figuring out what you actually like doing or where you like going without depending on a group to make the decision.

Of course it is SO EXPENSIVE in Ireland nowadays to eat out or to even consider blowing four euro on a cup of coffee. So this isn’t me saying you should eat out every night of the week or buy coffees all day every day to enjoy your own company.

But if you want to go out, and are waiting around for someone else to come with you, why not just go yourself?