Six days into a three week trip and I've eaten in a restaurant by myself exactly once. Every evening I tell myself I'll go out, then it gets to 7pm and I buy bread and cheese and eat it on my bunk. It isn't fear exactly, more that sitting alone at a table feels like being on display. I'm annoyed at myself because the food is half the reason I came.
A cooking class or a food tour early in a trip solves this sideways. You spend three hours with people, you learn what to order, and you often end up with dinner plans for the next two nights. Best money I spend on any solo trip.
Booked one for Thursday. Even if nothing comes of it socially I'll at least know what half the menu means.
Also fine to just not, some nights. Bread and cheese on a bunk after nine hours of walking is a legitimate dinner and not a failure. The trap is only when it becomes automatic and you stop choosing it.
Food markets and street stalls are the gentlest version. Standing up eating something with twenty other people doing the same is socially invisible, and it's usually the better food anyway. Work up to sit-down places if you want, or don't.
Book a table for one, by phone or through the hostel. Having a reservation means you've committed and you can't quietly talk yourself out of it at 7pm, which is really what's happening here.
This works on me in an embarrassing way. Once someone is expecting me I will absolutely go.
@coworking_cass · 4mo ago · 3 replies
Go early. Walking into a restaurant at 6:30 when it's half empty is a completely different experience to walking into a full room at 8:30 with everyone already seated. Staff have time, you get a decent table rather than the one by the toilets, and nobody is waiting on you to free it up.
Other things that made it easy for me:
The display feeling fades fast, honestly within about four meals. Nobody is looking. The waiter has seen forty solo diners this month.
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@flashcard_fen · 4mo ago
Did the 6:30 thing twice now. Completely different. The first place the owner sat and talked to me for ten minutes because there was nobody else in.
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@carryon_only · 4mo ago
Counter seating is the cheat code. In a lot of places it's actively the better seat and you end up talking to the cook.
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