Leon_Trotsky wrote:
Since I am quite a solitary person, I tend to eat in restaurants by myself instead of with friends, and obviously without girlfriend/wife. If I travel I do the same, just table for one.
However, I notice that here where I live people really seem to dislike people who eat alone in restaurants. When I eat alone I notice that a lot of people stare at me, especially couples composed of boyfriend/girlfriend or wife/husband. Some would give me "the eye" when they glare at me even.
I looked this topic up on the internet. Apparently some people here say that if they have to eat in a restaurant and they are by themselves, they ring a friend to accompany them, to avoid being ridiculed for eating alone in a restaurant.
Every time I go to a sit-down restaurant, the couples that are seated next to me stare constantly and try to look at me when they think that I do not notice them. Some stare at me then whisper to their partner something, and this process repeats.
A few months ago I ate dinner alone at a French restaurant here. I was seated in between two couples. All four people from both couples kept staring at me and then lowered their voices when talking to their partners. Then they stared again and again. I was close to asking them sarcastically, "May I help you?" or something similar.
Is this something new? I have never heard of how eating alone in a restaurant is considered odd. Is this a new-fashioned taboo thing?
I eat alone in restaurants. I actually find it very difficult to eat with other people. Last night my kayaking group went out for burgers. The club pays for a burger night every year at our last practice of the year. They put three tables together so that we could all sit together. But I had to sit at my own table by myself because eating in too close proximity with others is too difficult for me because there is too much going on as far as sensory stimulation. So honestly, I think that anyone who has a problem with people eating alone in a restaurant needs to get a life. Why should they be bothered if someone chooses to eat alone? That makes no sense to me at all. I think that kind of attitude is extremely rude and stupid.
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Wreck It Ralph