In Style: Dining Alone

You check your calendar for the week. On Friday, you note, you have plans to go to lunch at a restaurant.  It may be your favorite restaurant or it be may a local neighborhood spot that you’ll be trying for the first time. More realistically, it may be a restaurant that you’ll choose as you are running around the city getting things done when you realize you need to stop and grab a bite to eat.  By the way, who forgets to eat? Is that really a thing? I digress.

Only, this restaurant experience is a bit different than your usual dining out scenario.  You’ll find your way inside and approach the hostess stand as you are greeted by a perky young woman with a smile and an eagerness to seat you.  “How many? She’ll ask as you take off your coat and soak in the ambience. “One.” You reply with a peaceful demeanor. “Table for one, please.”

I can hear my readers taking a seat on either side of the table on this topic.  The idea of dining alone. Unaccompanied. Solo. Maybe it’s looking like at a table for one in the main dining room or maybe it looks like taking a seat at the bar for lunch. Whatever you decide, you are choosing to savor the time by yourself.  Maybe you’ll order an entrée or maybe just a cocktail and an appetizer. And you don’t rush. In fact, you’ll enjoy every quiet moment absorbing the ambience, the music, and various parties of two, three, or more while you sip your wine and keep your head up. And, oh yeah. The phone isn’t out. Because it’s dining alone, remember? There isn’t a need for the pacifier (which we call a phone) that can make us feel busy, important, accompanied, or less awkward when we are dining out by ourselves. Tuck that back in your clutch bag, my beautiful friend.

Those of you who have dined alone know the benefits of what I like to call “The Carrie Bradshaw”. If you avidly watched Sex & The City back in the late 90s and early 2000s, you’ll remember various scenes placed throughout the six seasons where Carrie gets a table for one on a New York City sidewalk and we are privy to her inside thoughts as she seems so content in the moment. More importantly, she can listen to her own thoughts because she has given herself the time to be quiet, and alone, and reflective. All in a public space.

For any woman who hasn’t tried this yet, I highly recommend that you do. It can be spontaneous or it can be a planned date with yourself.  I remember the first time that I did this. It wasn’t fancy and it wasn’t planned. It was at The Olive Garden in Times Square…visualize the picture here, okay? It was packed and as I sat there and enjoyed a meal all by myself for the first time, it felt awesome. Enlightening. Empowering. You learn to sit with your thoughts, enjoy your own company, and savor your life in that moment. Although I don’t do it as often as I’d like to, when I give myself this time, I find that I gain a sense of peace that comes when you spend quality time with yourself on purpose.  As Diane Von Furstenberg so ideally expressed it, “The most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself. If you have that, any other relationship is a plus and not a must.”

What does this have to do with style, you ask? Everything. The restaurant you choose (okay- so maybe my personal style isn’t reflected in unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks but we gotta start somewhere, sister), your mindset, and the confidence you build when dining alone spills over into every other aspect of your life. You trust yourself; you encourage yourself; you are comfortable with yourself. You value you’re your own opinion and learn to face fears that inevitably bubble to the service like your favorite glass of champagne. “What will they think?” turns into “What do I think?” and “I’m so uncomfortable” turns into “I am so comfortable and content”. The days of creating a false narrative in your mind that no longer serves you is also no longer on the menu and no longer in style.  So, for the love of shoes, let’s let that go.

Before you have this date with yourself, head into your closet and choose what you will wear based on how you want to show up for yourself. Maybe you’ll need to channel someone you admire or maybe you’ll choose to think about what the best and most confident version of yourself would wear. Go ahead and put that on. Watch how you expand in the most independent and beautiful way that day.  Final thought, for those who try it and don’t immediately feel comfortable or sold on “today’s special”, I encourage you to try again. It’s a delicious and enticing way to become more of who you were meant to be. And, that is always in style and always on the menu. See you across the restaurant. I’ll be giving you that small smile that says, “Good for you. Cheers.”