Is eating alone in a restaurant now a big taboo?

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Why even worry about eating alone? It’s pretty nice. You get to just eat and not have to do anything else but what you are there for!! Which is to fill your belly.

I definitely don't think so. I go out to eat pretty commonly, and have never felt like anyone cared one way or the other. I'm often in a college town area, so that's part of it maybe, but even when I'm not, I've never noticed a difference, really. It can be nice to stop in somewhere for lunch and read by myself.

I think a lot of it depends on where it's taking place.

There are some cities and towns where nothing goes unnoticed and there's a lot of scrutinizing others.

In other cities and towns most everyone is oblivious, apathetic regarding others and purposely ignore them in a setting like a restaurant.

Most people don’t really care in NYC.

Your post brings up a good point:

Maybe the reason why someone is looking at you wierd has nothing to do with your solo dining


Outside the restaurant does anyone look at you wierd?

What kind of clothes are you wearing?

Do you eat in an unusual way (according to someone else)?



Granted I hardly ever go to restaurants , but I find it hard to imagine that someone would hate you for eating alone

In general people stare at me in public and in meetups because they probably dislike me for no logical reason. However, when I eat alone in restaurants it seems like the amount of people who stare at me is a lot higher than in other situations.

I do not know if I eat weird, because I usually do not eat with friends or acquaintances. I usually eat alone or with my parents. And since people tend to stare at my parents when they themselves eat alone, they do not even know why they would be staring at me since they have the same problem.

Unlike most Americans, I eat British/European style, i.e. fork in left hand, knife in right hand, and spoon in left hand if needed. I never ever switch my fork to the right hand. Although I am not sure if the people who stare at me really care about the minutæ of my dining etiquette.

The only out of place clothing pieces that I have are 1960s aviator glasses. Perhaps that is considered rare for a 30 year old. Sometimes I wear 1970s-style chequered/plad button-down shirts.

It is not like when I was younger, when I used to wear tie-dye shirts and hippie clothing. On occasion I would wear my parents' old disco jackets and bellbottoms, which is probably not common for someone born in 1989. But right now I do not wear those things.

I think you must just be yourself and not pay attention to people who judge by outward appearances or think you should conform to certain expected norms. They should occupy their minds with something more useful.

Here in my country, we also eat with fork or spoon in the left hand and a knife in the right. Generally the style here has become pretty casual and the UK influence had become pretty Americanized and we have that ultimate in fast food travesties called McDonalds.

for some of us at the bottom of the income distribution, mickey-d's is a rare treat and only with coupons.

It's only a problem for people who like to think such things are problems. I flat out ignore such people and eat wherever I like, whenever I like. Their own choice if they decide to get their panties in a bunch about it.

It's not even a taboo. It's flat-out marketing. Groups of people are more profitable for the entertainment and hospitality industry, even on a per-person basis, than singletons. *ALL* advertising for those industries pushes the image of the group of friends (or, less often, an entire family) enjoying the product or service. Thus, people who don't actually think about the things they see start assuming that the services MUST be consumed in groups for some unspoken social reason, and feel uncomfortable (without knowing why) when they see something they're not expecting, like a person using the service who isn't in a group.

It's marketing and ignorant people. That's all it is.

I don't understand why people would stare though. Don't they care what you're feeling?
And that is why I believe the spotlight effect is real. People notice everything all the time and do stare and judge.

And once time I come across a thread here titled "are Aspies more judgemental?" I think not. NTs typically are judgemental, otherwise they'd just mind their own business and occupy their minds with their own thoughts and problems.

Even as a married man with a child I still frequently eat out alone, obviously not as frequent but it is still quite common. Why would anybody care? How do they not know I am not a business trip or on a work break? I will admit it is still a bit depressing (that I don't have friends to go with that is) but I don't feel embarrassed to me a singleton at a restaurant.

I've never understood why large (10+) groups HAVE to all eat together. For goodness sake you generally can't even see the other end of the table let alone talk to anyone!

In New York, nobody really bothers to notice why somebody is eating alone, or whether somebody is eating with ten people.

I only eat out for social reasons (people I like occasionally invite me, and it seems to be one of those bonding things), so I've not experienced dining out alone, except once when I was early for a band performance in a public bar and nobody else had arrived yet. I felt rather awkward as if everybody was noticing I was alone, though I really don't think they noticed me at all. Back in my youth I would tend to panic at social gatherings if I couldn't find anybody to talk with (which usually was the case), and my behaviour would then become pretty desperate, and they'd think I was weird or horribly lonely, which didn't help. Later I learned to appear comfortable in my own company, and to mostly avoid going alone into social situations.