I get gussied up. The good outfit. The good bra. The shoes that have no business being on my feet for a Tuesday but here we are. I make a reservation at somewhere that requires a reservation and I go to dinner.
By myself.
On purpose.
In the Southeast, this occasionally earns me a look. The host scanning behind me for the rest of the party that is not coming. The server asking twice if anyone will be joining me. The couple at the next table doing the thing where they try not to stare and then stare anyway.
I am from New Jersey. We do what we want, when we want. That is the culture I was raised in. The look does not land.
I pick up the menu and I order the wine I actually like.
Why I go alone.
Let me count the reasons because there are several and they are all valid.
I talk for a living. Consulting, coaching, presenting, facilitating- I am professionally verbal for hours at a time and by the end of a full week my mouth is genuinely tired. Sometimes I am just all talked out. The last thing I need is a dinner companion who requires conversation when what I need is a medium-rare steak and some jazz and the specific peace of nobody asking me anything.
My best girlfriends are wonderful women who do not always share my enthusiasm for the particular cuisine I am hankering for on a given evening. I am not going to negotiate my dinner into something I do not want because someone else is coming. When I go alone, I order exactly what I want with no committee input required.
And then there is the other reason. The one that requires a certain level of honesty to say out loud.
Men do not generally want to pay for quality meals without a sexual component to the evening. That is not a generalization. That is a documented feature of how a certain kind of man approaches a certain kind of date. And I prefer my intimacy to be completely unattached to quid-pro-quo because for many of them they could nevah- and the steak is too good to be owed to someone who was never going to earn it anyway.
So, I take myself. I pay my own bill. I owe nobody anything at the end of the night except a tip and a Lyft fare.
That is a clean transaction and I appreciate it.
What a solo dinner actually looks like.
I have a process. Like all things in my life, it is intentional.
I get dressed as if someone worth impressing is going to see me. Because someone worth impressing is going to see me. That someone is me and she has standards.
I find somewhere with good food and ideally good jazz or blues because music in a restaurant is either an asset or an intrusion and there is no in between. A live piano situation. A small jazz quartet in the corner. Something that fills the air without requiring my attention. That is the sweet spot.
I sit. I order the wine first because the wine sets the tone. Then the steak- medium rare, every time, non-negotiable. The phone stays in the bag. Emergency only. The whole point of being here is to be here.
What happens after that depends entirely on the establishment and my mood.
Sometimes I people watch. A good restaurant on a Friday night is a theater and the tables around you are performing whether they know it or not. The couple on a first date trying too hard. The group of women celebrating something. The man eating alone in the corner who looks like he either just closed a deal or lost one and you cannot tell which. I watch all of them and I make up the stories and I enjoy myself immensely.
Sometimes I am reflecting. Running through my life like a film I am reviewing for continuity. What is working. What needs attention. What I want the next chapter to look like. A good meal and a glass of something worth drinking is the best thinking environment I have found.
I finish with a nightcap. Something that signals the evening is complete and I am satisfied. Then I catch a Lyft home.
A wonderful night was had by all. Meaning me.
When I go out, sometimes I have a book- the physical kind, page-turning, old school. That is usually a quieter and more casual establishment. Somewhere with good food but a little more relaxed energy. A real book and a real meal alone is one of the most civilized things a person can do for themselves.
And sometimes I have a small notebook and a pen. Something caught my attention during the week and I want to sit with it properly. A casual spot with good food and a corner table is the perfect thinking room. Nobody needs me. Nothing is urgent. The page is waiting.
Which brings me to the weekend morning version of all of this- the coffee house. A whole separate category of solo outing that deserves its own mention.
I have curated my top seven list of coffee houses in Greenville, SC alone and I keep them on rotation. Every city I spend time in gets the same treatment- I find the good ones, I learn which one fits which mood, and I show up accordingly. Not Starbucks. The real ones. The ones with the right chairs.
And I am very specific about the chair. A chair-and-a-half is the only acceptable solo coffee house seating- with an ottoman if the universe is feeling generous, but the chair alone will do. Not a bar stool. Not a hard backed chair at a table built for four- I have a generous wagon and I respect myself. A chair-and-a-half where I can tuck myself in and stay for a couple of hours without feeling like I am overstaying my welcome- because I am not. I came prepared and I tipped well and this chair is mine until I decide otherwise.
The outfit is different from the dinner version- cute and casual, still completely dolled up because I do not leave the house any other way- maybe a fabulous headscarf or a jaunty chapeau, glasses on because it is the morning and my eyes need a moment, book in hand, little notebook nearby. Still looking like a million dollars. Just a cozier million.
The activities are the same. People watching, reflecting, reading, writing. Just with better coffee and a slightly softer landing.
The devaluing thing. And why I am not asking for your sympathy.
I have a history of people undervaluing my company. I work on that in therapy. Do not feel bad for me- I am telling you so you understand why I learned to provide my own good company rather than waiting for someone else to recognize it was worth showing up for.
What I discovered somewhere along the way is that my own company is actually quite good. I am interesting. I am funny. I have wide-ranging opinions about things that matter and some things that do not and I find my own thoughts genuinely engaging when I give them space to move around.
Most people never find this out about themselves because they are afraid of the silence that comes when there is nobody else in the room. They fill it with a phone or a podcast or a companion they do not particularly want to be with just so they do not have to sit alone with themselves.
I am not afraid of that silence. I have furnished it. It is comfortable in there. And before anyone asks- no, I do not have multiple personalities. I just genuinely enjoy my own company. There is a difference and therapy has confirmed it, lol.
Alone is not lonely. Write that down.
There is a specific kind of confidence that comes from being able to take yourself somewhere nice and enjoy it fully without requiring external validation that the evening was worthwhile.
You ordered what you wanted. You sat with your own thoughts and your own company and it was enough. More than enough. You did not need someone else at the table to confirm that you were worth a good meal and a good glass of wine and a few hours of your own undivided attention.
That is self-care in its most direct form. Not a face mask and a bath bomb. A reservation at somewhere that requires a reservation, a dress that deserves to be seen, and the complete confidence of your own company for an evening (or the morning).
In the Southeast, they look at me like I have misplaced someone.
For this Jersey girl I am exactly where I am supposed to be- alone, not lonely, ordering the steak medium rare and tipping well on my way out.
You are worth the solo dinner. The good restaurant. The wine you actually like.
Take yourself. You will have a wonderful time.
Have you ever taken yourself on a solo dinner date? What was it like? Drop it in the comments.
