Eating out alone – how the first evening gets easier

There are people who travel through foreign countries alone and would still rather eat at home than sit down at a restaurant table. The unease is remarkably stubborn, and it has little to do with confidence. It has to do with eating being culturally framed as a social act – sitting alone looks like breaking a rule.

The stare that mostly is not there

The fear goes: everyone is looking and thinking something. In fact that barely happens. Psychologists call the misjudgement the spotlight effect: we systematically overestimate how much others notice us. In reality the people at the next table are busy with their own evening, and the staff are glad of a guest who decides quickly.

Anyone who has tried it once notices immediately. After ten minutes and the first course the tension is gone, and the rest of the evening feels like – dinner.

Time and place matter more than nerve

The first attempt almost always works if the conditions are right. Lunchtime is easier than evening: plenty of people eat alone then and nobody looks twice. Early evening is easier than half past eight, when the place is full of couples and parties. And a seat at the bar or by the window is easier than a table for four in the middle of the room.

• Bar seats and kitchen counters: you sit side by side rather than opposite. The empty place does not show, and there is something to watch.
• Ramen, sushi, soup places: solo guests are the norm there, in some kitchens practically the rule.
• Bistros and wine bars with small tables: one person belongs at a table for two just as much as two do.
• Market halls and food courts: come and go without ceremony, short stays, no waiter checking in.
• The local place round the corner: after the third visit you are not a solo guest any more, you are someone they know.

What to bring – and what not to

A book or a newspaper is good company. The phone is bad company, even though it feels like the opposite at first. Stare at a screen the whole time and you signal busyness outwards while getting nothing from the evening itself – neither the food nor what is going on around you.

The real gain of eating alone is that you actually take the place in. The conversation at the next table, the movements behind the counter, the music. Eat with someone and you catch almost none of it.

From eating alone to eating together

For some people eating alone stays exactly what they wanted: a quiet hour to themselves. For others it is a stepping stone. If you find you would actually rather share the evening, it is easier now – the hard part, walking in at all, is already behind you.

The step across is smaller than it looks. Eating together among strangers works on the same rules as a Sunday walk: there is an occasion, there is a natural length, and there is always something to talk about. On Wegbegleiter365 you will find such gatherings under things to do – from Sunday brunch to the regulars’ table that meets every week.