It took my first solo trip abroad for me to get to grips with eating alone.
Albeit out of necessity rather than Independent Woman-style statement making, but it was also my first lightbulb moment of realisation that society really isn’t set up to cater to the hungry Billy No Mates’ of the world. And there’s a weighty judgement attached to that solo diner being a woman.
I was in Hong Kong for the first time on a working holiday of sorts.
And while I stayed with family for the most part, long days spent on one of the islands a whole ferry-ride away from where my bed was often meant that two out of three meals a day had to be sourced on my own.
I’ve never considered myself a particularly shy person, and I’d like to think that I’m pretty comfortable in my own company but there was something inherently unnerving about requesting a table for one.
That particular type of unsettlement was only intensified when my request was met by confusion or an insistence that I must just be waiting for someone else to join me.
The weird facial contortion that happens when you don’t know how to express judgement and pity at the same time was mirrored on the faces of waiters in the UK when I plucked up the courage to dine alone on home soil for the first time.
And once you experience it, you can’t un-see it.
Especially when, if you eventually make it past the awkward first encounter, over to your table and look around only to find that the only other people enjoying a meal on their tod are men.
Even after six-weeks of defiantly over-ordering Dim Sum to make a point to both myself and the passing waiters about how totally okay I was with not sharing my steamed pork buns, the feeling that I was doing something wrong or wasn’t following the rules, is something that has since stuck with me.
Dinner, it seems, is reserved for couples.
Tables in restaurants are laid for two.
Those ‘dine in’ meal deals you can get at the supermarket are created on the assumption that you’ll be sharing those dauphinoise potatoes and bottle of Sauvignon Blanc with someone else.
And the image of a woman sat at a table without someone else to entertain them really isn’t something we’re used to.
References to the female solo diner in some of the defining pop cultural signposts of our generation always seem to be pretty crappy ones.
It’s Carrie Bradshaw being stood up for her 35th birthday dinner. It’s Bridget Jones, unable to cook and devouring a tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream beneath the shelter of her duvet.
It’s Rachel from Friends coming back to the apartment to tell everyone she really enjoyed going out for dinner on her own only to be shut down by Chandler who responds with: ‘Although I must say that I totally judge any woman I see eating alone’.
So, what is it?
Most of us spend more time on our own than we realise. Whether it’s a product of living alone, not being in a relationship or just being someone who really doesn’t enjoy being around other people, I think it’s fair to say that doing things solo is just as big a part of life as any other.
Over the last decade or so as we’ve ushered in new waves of feminism and heralded the era of a different type of girl power, we haven’t been able to moves for encouragement to do our own thing, be comfortable in our own skin and not allow anything, least of all men, to dictate how we behave.
Yet there’s so much about food that subconsciously tells us that women should be accompanied in order to fulfil one of the most basic requirements of existing.
A 2014 report by NPD found that we eat more than half of our meals alone while more recent research found that Brits, in particular, spend £44 (71.86 AUD) a week at restaurants.
Yet the maths still seems not to quite equate to a societal acceptance of eating dinner in public without anyone else. There has to be a ‘reason’.
Be it sitting down with a paper or to have a laptop sat across from you in place of your date, there’s an unspoken pressure of having to be productive that associated with eating on your own.
The image of men in suits, laptop bag in hand, stopping for a quick bite on the way home from work comes to mind more often than a young woman eating alone by choice, with no further obligation than taking some time for herself and enjoying a course or two of really nice food that she hasn’t had to cook herself.
The BBC reported that there had been a rise in solo dining over the years as restaurants have clued on to the fact that we do actually like to venture out of the house without company every now and again, but the recommendation always seems to be to go sit at the bar, and I don’t know about you but I think sitting at the bar for dinner, a proper dinner that you can relax in to, is pretty shit.
I want a table, for me, at the appropriate height with a comfortable chair at which my feet can touch the floor.
I’d also quite like a knife and fork wrapped in a napkin, if that’s not too much to ask.
And I want people to stop assuming that I’ve been stood up by an elusive date who thought better of meeting me if ever I’m found alone at a table dressed for two.
This post was originally published on the Debrief.
