Does Dining Alone Intimidate You?

When I tell other women my age that I frequently eat out alone, they tend to look at me like I have two heads.

When they catch their breath, they say something like, “Aren’t you embarrassed?” Or, “How did you work up the nerve?”

“Table for one?”–a phrase that can strike fear in a woman entering a restaurant alone.

I understand their reactions. It’s not always easy for me to walk into a restaurant alone. More often than I admit I have to overcome the image that everyone in the restaurant is passing judgment on me, deeming me a loser because I don’t have a date.  Psychologists call this response the “spotlight effect.”

A recent article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, elaborates on the spotlight effect, insisting that most people chronically overestimate how much others notice us.

They draw on a 2000 study to support their conclusion. In this study a group of Cornell students entered a public area alone wearing a Barry Manilow t-shirt, since preliminary research had established they’d find few fashion choices more mortifying! The research subjects guessed that half their fellow students had noticed, when in fact only under a quarter did.

Since I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a Barry Manilow t-shirt, the odds are in my favor: few people will notice me and if they do, I put my stock in a positive outcome:  the other patrons aren’t judging me. I’m nothing but a momentary distraction in the same manner as the other diners.

My confidence level takes a boost every time I eat out alone because I’ve conquered an act  that was once intimidating.

An older woman enjoying her solo meal.

Dining solo isn’t a random act for me. I have certain rules. For starters, I choose small, intimate neighborhood restaurants where I sit at the bar and order my meal. Often other solo diners are seated near me. Sometimes, but not always, I will engage in conversation with them. If I feel awkward I can retrieve a book from my purse. (I make it a habit not to look at my iPhone because I find the fast pace of the screen culture interferes with leisurely eating.) Returning to the same friendly neighborhood eatery often means I’m recognized and greeted warmly by the wait staff.

Gloria Steinem, who’s been dining alone for twenty plus years (dating back to an era when some New York restaurants wouldn’t admit single women), encourages women to dine alone. She considers the act of no-date-no-problem “a civil right.”

Gloria Steinem, dining alone at the posh Russian Tea Room.

Have you made the leap to dining alone?