5 Helpful Tips For Eating Alone

It’s 2014 and if I feel like enjoying a silent meal out alone, I should be allowed to. But there are some strategies you can use to ensure your meal is perfect.

1. Order something you don’t have to cut.

Anything that you can eat one-handed is good; especially if you’re trying to read. You don’t want to have to stop reading to shovel food onto your fork, you want to be able to do it all while sitting there and reading. Anything liquid-adjacent is going to be hard. Unless it’s soup. Soup might work.

2. Bring a quick-paced book to read.

Anything that will hold your attention. Eating alone is not the time to read “War and Peace” or The Infinite Jest” or anything. Something quick and attention-grabbing is going to work wonders for you as you eat in silence. You’ll be paying attention to your book and hopefully get in a lot of reading while you eat.

3. Sit facing where most people will be entering the restaurant.

If you’re anything like me, you’re horrified at the idea of someone seeing you before you see them. You can avoid that by facing towards where most people will be entering. Then you don’t have to worry about being caught off-guard by Becky who you only took one cardio barre class with anyway, why does she think you’re such good friends?

4. Be prepared with your orders.

You don’t want to get into a convo with your waiter or waitress. You just want to eat alone in peace, right? So make sure you’re ready with your order. Maybe even come knowing what you want to eat. That’d be good! Also helpful to just yell your full order out as soon as they arrive to your table so as to waste no time. But in a nice way.

5. Make sure you talk a little under your breath so you can actually speak.

If you’re not only eating out alone but also just generally spending a lot of time alone, it’s helpful sometimes to talk a little under your breath or to yourself so that your voice still works. It’ll be kinda weird if you open your mouth to speak and that just-woke-up frog-in-your-voice sound comes out, right?

Okay well, happy eating!