Eating alone. We’ve all done it. Forced into consuming a meal by yourself because everyone else is busy, or you are busy and you need to get back to it. However, when I eat alone, I usually retreat back to my home or my car if I’m in a rush. I know I’m not alone considering I saw a woman do the same thing only last week.

When did eating by ourselves become something to fear? Or maybe some of us don’t fear it, but it’s an activity that’s avoided nonetheless. So, I decided to eat alone the traditional way; in a restaurant, with people around. Here is what happened summed up into little thoughts. I chose one of my favorite pho places to go to so I could compare what it’s like to eat with people and alone (and also because I really, really love pho).

1. They’re quick to seat you.
2. They also sat me kind of at the back, along the wall. When I come with people, they always seat me at the front.
3. I feel like I’m sticking out.
4. No one actually cares what I’m doing. They’re all talking amongst themselves.
5. It just occurred to me that my waiter probably thinks I’m some amateur food critic with my pen and notebook. No, sir, just eating alone today.
6. I’m not hating their choice of music, but Taylor Swift is pretty random. I dig it.
7. They seated two other people eating alone at the two tables behind me. Maybe this is the single people section?
8. People who eat alone don’t take very long to order. Both people gave their waiter their order within 10 seconds of sitting down.

Nothing too scarring happened. I didn’t combust into flames. It was a little uncomfortable though. It’s probably something I could get used to if I did it enough. The one thing I did notice is that for as many that don’t eat alone, there are just as many that do. All the people that were eating in groups were dressed casually like they were prepared for a day to hang out. The people that ate alone were dressed mostly in active wear like they were going somewhere or coming from somewhere.

I think eating alone is something I’d like to do again though. It gave me time to just be with myself. I didn’t discover something deep inside like you're probably supposed to when you try something new, but I did find that once I got through the initial awkwardness of being alone, it could be quite nice. This experience has brought a whole new meaning to the saying “learn how to be alone.” It takes a whole new form of concentration not to get too caught up in how you may appear to the rest of the people. In all honestly, they aren’t giving you the same level of attention you're giving yourself. So go out, eat alone. Maybe you’ll find it’s not so bad too.