Dining Alone Doesn’t Have to Be Lonely

I eat alone maybe once a week, sometimes more if time and / or duty permits.

But don’t feel sorry for me.

It’s usually in the morning, or afternoon, a Saturday or Sunday. Sometimes I add a midweek dinner to the lineup, especially in the summer when the sun’s too flirtatious for me to stay indoors, still high and brilliant in the sky. It is usually a place in my neighborhood--a five- or 10-minute drive from home or the gym.

The greeting might surprise you: People are warm, and it is delicious. Someone shares yesterday’s soccer play-by-play or there is a glimpse of baby photos, sloppy-star sightings provocative enough to make the Enquirer drool, party invites, wedding news. As my table is being prepared, a waiter or waitress may rest a moment in a chair beside me and ask me how the week’s been--who I’ve met, what corner of the city I will wander next. I might have breakfast with the owner’s mother. A talk with a waiter’s visiting son.

I’ve learned some Portuguese. Some Greek. If I haven’t made it in for a while, my Indian family asks: “We wondered if you had eaten something that displeased you.” And out comes extra lamb and garlic naan and on-the-house biryiani.

For some, I know, the mere mention of dining solo inspires the achingly retro heat of pubescent peer scrutiny. For others, it comes with a lengthy list of provisos--never at night, never on the weekend, never in your hometown lest someone see. Somehow, in some inverted, sideways fashion, a table alone in the sun has become a measure of worth--or lack thereof.

Indeed, there are moments when scrutiny is palpable, but the experience is so much more nourishing than most might think that it far outweighs the fear.

“It has to do with feeling protected,” figures Marya Charles Alexander, her crisp voice straining over the Authentic Cafe’s thundering lunch din. Sitting on a high stool with a sidewalk view, Alexander spears a romaine leaf dusted with feta and kalamata olives. It’s a seat she’d request here if dining alone. Her other favorite is a busy mosaic counter spot that faces the crash and sizzle of the grill. As the editor of a bimonthly newsletter, Dining Solo Savvy: Taking a Bite Out of Eating Alone, she knows more than a little about those oddly prickly moments when one feels disorientingly visible and invisible at the same time.

Like me, Alexander says she’s attempted to explain to dubious friends that this screwy idea to take a meal alone does not brand us certifiable. How about resourceful? How about adventuresome? How about badly in need of a moment of solace?

When I started eating solo in college, I always went with textbooks and other assigned tomes, long yellow tablets, pencils. I would arrange them on the table so that people figured me as busy. They spoke of purpose. They spoke of industry and direction. Focus.

Were they props? Alexander asks me. Some of them, probably, I acknowledge. I’m not quite sure now, because my pattern remains the same, except now the tools are two newspapers, a bag of bills and, when I’m feeling optimistic, a collection of quiet short stories.

“People try all kinds of tricks,” says Alexander, an elegant, slender woman with a waterfall of red hair breaking across her shoulders, Bacall style. “I know one prominent businesswoman who doesn’t let them take away the other table setting. She’d rather that people think she was expecting someone who didn’t show, rather than just dining alone. Or there’s an actress who says that she dines alone in her [dramatic] persona! Now, doesn’t that sound like neat fun? I’m told that happens quite frequently here in L.A.”

It makes me wonder: How many people go to all that trouble to create scenarios down to the details of crystal, cutlery and character?

Many more than you might think, says Alexander, who in the first few months of her desktop venture already has about 100 subscribers ($29 per year). Fear of dining alone, she says, has little to do with how successful or how smart you are: “I know a very prominent woman who carries an apple in her purse in case she gets hungry, because she’s so terrified of going to a restaurant alone.”

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Undeniably, there is something unsettling about being sized up in the stare of a transient stranger, about the vulnerability of the “stage” of a table alone. But what Alexander wants to point out to potential solos is that it isn’t as terrifying as it might appear, that it can be the beginning of a relationship with an extended family (in the form of a wait staff), the reward at the end of a long, dispiriting week, or a cheap form of therapy. “It’s all about looking at the whole experience as adventure. It’s all how you think about it.”

And what I see is perceptions keeping pace with tradition, so as people marry later, work longer and priorities shift, the hearth of a dinner table now takes a more broad interpretation in both our imagination and our reality. As most solo pros will tell you, dining solo doesn’t necessarily mean dining alone.

The rise of community, networking and host tables, in fine restaurants, of friendly barkeeps spreading a white linen napkin and arranging the goblets and sterling--and picking up where you last left off--are not only the harbingers of the new notions of community and home, but, I think, help to chase away mildewed presumptions of “good girls don’t hang out in bars.”

Alexander heartily agrees: “Years ago, when my marriage was on rocky ground, a very dear friend asked if I ever had eaten alone as a way to get used to doing things by myself--meeting new people, expanding my circle. In a high shrill voice, I responded, ‘Of course, I couldn’t do that!’ ”

A year later, the union dissolved and she decided to give it a try, rewarding herself with a day trip that would culminate in a fine dinner. “Newly separated, I was trying to get my sea legs. It’s a mature conversation you have to have with yourself. But the closer I got to the restaurant, the more afraid I was. But when I walked in, the maitre d’ was out of Central Casting--’Hello, how are you! Let me get you a glass of wine!’ ”

Still, Alexander admits, it was a failure. “It had nothing to do with substandard treatment. I just couldn’t do it.”

Telling such war stories to students, friends, family, men and women, she found herself hardly alone. And there was little advice on the matter. Paging through old glamour magazines, Alexander would blanch at the offerings: “ ‘Dine early. Don’t antagonize anybody. Don’t be the object of pity.’ It just underlined that this is not something one does.”

Publishing a how-to for people who desired to feel more comfortable dining alone--home and away--and that at the same time informed the restaurant industry about the special needs and desires of solo diners seemed a logical first step.

She fired off letters and questionnaires to professionals and frequent fliers, and conducted interviews with diners, servers, chefs and owners for her 1990 book, “Solo Diners: The Untapped Megamarket” (Rockbridge Publishing).

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The newsletter seemed a logical extension, a way to not only give tips and offer moral support--literary comfort food--but a way for restaurateurs to track who’s doing what across the country and, Alexander says with a laugh, “Are they making money doing it?”

Her newsletter is a noisy smorgasbord of information: quips from seasoned solo diners like Brooke Shields, rundowns of solo-friendly restaurants nationwide, solo safety tips, bar scene / counter dining updates (“Is it really counter dining, or are they using it for overflow?”).

It takes time to break with tradition and learn to break bread and be fed--literally and figuratively--in different ways. It doesn’t come with the first try. It doesn’t come without some ridiculous string of conversation, bold inquiry: Are you waiting for someone? Is your party late?

There are those who are getting over the loss of a loved one--be it death or divorce--others who are simply learning the ropes of a new identity.

It’s a concerted effort, says Christine Splichal, who with husband Joachim owns the Patina / Pinot restaurants: “Solo diners are always worried that they are going to get rushed, shoveled to the very back. You hear it all the time, so we’ve tried to make their experience comfortable while we treat them to a good meal.”

Alexander stresses that it’s respect that moves the solo dining experience to a different level: “It’s not simply about taking a meal alone. If you are in a good place, not feeling like the walking wounded, you are less likely to see yourself as alone and everyone else as a couple. Through this process, you become more confident, take charge, you see where all of the options are open.

“For me, I could tell, each time it was easier. After the first time, it was about me working on self, not them. They were fine.”

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Tips for Dining Out Solo

* When you’re at a restaurant with friends, try to gauge whether it would be a pleasant place to dine alone. Pay attention to how solo diners are treated.

* Consider which meal is most comfortable for you. Saturday morning breakfast? Sunday brunch? Weekday dinner or weekends?

* Mom-and-pop places are a good first step; you’ll blend in.

* Be assertive about where you want to sit and let the host / hostess know that you are out for a special event.

* When traveling, concierges are usually expert about solo-friendly restaurants. Don’t be afraid to ask.

* Be sensitive to how busy things are or have gotten since you arrived. Offer to take your coffee and dessert in the bar. Often, the staff will turn themselves inside out to please you and will never forget the offer.

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Some solo-friendly L.A. eateries:

* 72 Market Street, Venice

* Authentic Cafe, Fairfax District

* Pacific Dining Car, Downtown

* Caffe Latte, Mid-Wilshire

* Pinot Bistro, Studio City

* Philippe the Original, Downtown

* Musso and Frank, Hollywood

* The Newsroom Cafe, West Hollywood

* Westwood Marquis and Gardens, Westwood

* Rockenwagner, Santa Monica

Source: Dining Solo Savvy: The Newsletter Devoted to Taking the Bite Out of Eating Alone. For information and subscriptions: (800) 299-1079; e-mail: solodining@aol.com.