Eating out alone as a woman

[Chocolattay]

I’m not judging anybody who eats out alone, I think it should be normal and the stigma is pathetic. But people on Mumsnet only speak positively about it. I had a terrible experience of it and surely it can’t have been unique to me, as the stigma exists. Or is it really me?

I was in London for an important appointment a few years ago, and I had the whole day to kill. It was my first time ever in London and I didn’t want to settle for a crap Big Mac or Burger King for lunch when I could have that at home, so I went to a hippy bohemian bistro type place in SoHo. I had to talk myself into it. I’d eventually convinced myself it’d be fine and thought they probably got loads of business people in alone anyway. But it was fucking awful. Even though I had specifically said table for 1, they didn’t seem to grasp that. I was waiting an hour just to order a drink. I’d make eye contact with the waiter but he’d just smile awkwardly. Eventually I spoke up and asked to order when he was rushing past. He asked if I was waiting for anybody. I said no. He looked like he’d seen a ghost ffs. He was actually quite rude to me in the service afterwards, and blunt. As if he’d decided there must be something wrong with me for me to be alone. It was horrible.

I vowed never to do it again. Weirdly enough I’ve done it a couple of times post-baby with baby in tow and haven’t felt awkward at all. It’s like the mere presence of a pram is going to be proof to people that I can’t be that weird if somebody has had a baby with me, therefore I’m ‘allowed’ to eat out alone.

DH does it regularly though and says nobody has ever battered an eyelid, which makes me wonder if it’s a gender/misogyny thing. It’s fine for men to enjoy their own company but women should always have a group of ‘girls’ to chat with? Is that what it is? Or am I massively overthinking it?

I genuinely think this must be dependant on your group of friends because honestly if I broached to most of my peers about eating alone it would be a quizzical eyebrow lift and "of course I would why wouldn't I?"

Maybe it's different areas (although I've eaten a lot alone in London and it's never been an issue).

To be honest similarly with hiking etc. I know several women who do this alone as a hobby as do I (can't call it a hobby really as I don't do it often enough due to other commitments), it wouldn't cross my mind it's a male thing.

Perhaps this is just down to what happens to be your peers?

@Chocolattay

I’ve had my own friends say they couldn’t even sit in Costa alone on their lunch break, which shocks me.

I think this post says more about you and the people you know than society.

I'm honestly shocked that you know 1 person who won't eat alone in Costa let alone a few. This isn't my experience of life in my mid 30s and have lived in 3 countries (I.e. have met a wide variety of people).

I eat lunch out alone almost daily and don't even think twice about it. It's literally no different to having my breakfast at home alone when everyone is out.

Perhaps the fact that you seem to have managed to surround yourself with people who feel to self conscious to even sit in a cafe waiting for friends has skewed your perception of 'normality' when it comes to doing things alone? I don't know one person who would do that, but if I was friends with several I can see that it might feed into my fears.

I often eat alone in London. Sometimes because I am working and want to take my lunch break outside the office and sometimes because I am just out on my own and fancy something to eat...

I have only had a couple of instances when restaurant staff tried to give me a table I did not like and I immediately tell them no I want to seat somewhere else....

Never had any problem with service or anything.

I usually am busy with a newspaper, book, phone, work stuff on the table so I hardly pay attention to what other people around me are doing anyway. And I could not care less about what they think...

Most people are too busy focusing on themselves and don't really care about what other people are doing so you might be overthinking it a bit.

I think you were just unlucky. I eat out on my own often. As a introverted person being able to enjoy a solo restaurant meal is a real treat. Sometimes the service is great, sometimes not so much but on balance I think I get slightly better service when in my own than when I'm in a group. They might feel sorry for me or they might want to get me out of there quickly but either way I have never been ignored.

I live in London so obviously my experience is mostly London based but I spent last week in Edinburgh on my own so every meal was a solo meal and the service was excellent everywhere. I also spend a lot of time working in Bristol and have never had a bad experience there either.

I can only think of a handful of times I have been kept waiting over half an hour for service/a drink in a restaurant. Every time it happened I was in a couple or group and they didn't get the chance to keep us waiting an hour as we walked out and found somewhere else to eat!

As a Londoner, I'd be extremely shocked if a woman dining alone in Soho raised an eyebrow. I think (with the utmost respect and sympathy because I've done similar) that your awkwardness and expectations were projected onto the situation. You might have given signals that you were hoping to take your time, without meaning to.

I hope you try it again and have a better time!

I knew you’d get these responses on here as I’ve seen this question asked numerous times. They aren’t wrong, but although many women are used to eating on their own - mainly for work reasons, it seems - it just isn’t very visible and to many people it IS weird. Where I live it’s unusual to see a bloke eating on his own outside a fast food place or pub, and I can’t recall a woman doing it. And I’d notice.

I regularly go to the cinema and theatre and travel on my own, and there are people who can be relied on to act as if this is all rather odd, comical and I’m being extremely brave. I know this is nonsense, but the very reaction makes me feel awkward. One is a colleague who does everything en masse; next time they tell me they’re going on holiday with a group of other families, I feel like tittering and saying I couldn’t possibly do that (true, sounds awful to me). See how they like it.

I've found it really hard to just do a walk-in on my own before now.

I boycot all restaurants that have done this - I've even had this when they've been ultra quiet in case anyone talks about why would they accept 1 person as a walking when they can get 2 etc.

In Europe, I've never had a problem.

During and post pandemic, forget eating out alone, you can't easily book single dining.

I honestly don't do this often, but I find it tricky unless I go to a chain restaurant. It's the time I rue being a widow and kick myself for not actively looking for a new partner...!

@JunkIsland

I knew you’d get these responses on here as I’ve seen this question asked numerous times. They aren’t wrong, but although many women are used to eating on their own - mainly for work reasons, it seems - it just isn’t very visible and to many people it IS weird. Where I live it’s unusual to see a bloke eating on his own outside a fast food place or pub, and I can’t recall a woman doing it. And I’d notice.

I regularly go to the cinema and theatre and travel on my own, and there are people who can be relied on to act as if this is all rather odd, comical and I’m being extremely brave. I know this is nonsense, but the very reaction makes me feel awkward. One is a colleague who does everything en masse; next time they tell me they’re going on holiday with a group of other families, I feel like tittering and saying I couldn’t possibly do that (true, sounds awful to me). See how they like it.

How visible it is depends on where you are though, and the OP was in Soho. This is really really common there. It's not work reasons for me. I sometimes eat out alone if I've taken myself to a gallery or shopping alone, if I haven't made any plans with friends/they're not available and DP isn't free. IMO a peaceful dinner or lunch out alone is quite a treat if you live with a DP and/or others, as I do, and are usually eating at home with them.

I have a couple of friends who won't do anything on their own. They won't even catch a train or go on a bus solo let alone walk into a cafe or pub and have a meal on their own but they are very much the minority. I accommodate them because they are good mates but secretly I think it's weird and a bit pathetic.

It's particularly odd because one of them is a community nurse so spends her working days on her own, visiting multiple strangers in their homes but as soon as she is socialising she needs a companion for every activity.

I go away alone loads, my kids are grown up and my husband is SE so can't always take time off. I'd starve if I didn't eat alone! I can get a plane or a ferry on my own as well!

Also just to clarify I’m not stating I believe women should only be out with friends. I’m just trying to work out if that’s a societal belief.

Only if you live in the 1950s.

I dined out alone for years on my weekly work trips away. Nobody batted an eyelid.

I’ve also had situations in restaurants where we were ignored as a family and had to chase a waiter. Should I conclude it was because of my daughter’s wheelchair?

That is true, Intermittent. I wasn’t really agreeing that this particular waiter was treating the op badly because she was her own, more sounding off about the fact it isn’t more normalised to eat out alone. I think the reason op felt judged is because she’s aware society as a whole can be weird about people, but especially women, doing things alone. In some circles, I am the only woman who does!

I have female colleagues who won’t eat outside the hotel when away from home for work if they don’t have someone to go with. I don’t travel for work that much, but when I do I’m definitely not staying in the hotel to eat. And, yes, I eat out on my own for non-work reasons too, but am very aware that I go for less formal options so am restricting myself a bit.

There are people who go straight from one relationship to the next because they're unable to function alone.

I eat out alone all the time. I've only had two bad experiences: one in a local neighbourhood restaurant where the waiter clearly wanted more people at the table for tips, and once in France - where it's absolutely the norm to eat out - where the waiter kept looking at me sideways and didn't take my order. In the end one of the other staff did. That's in nearly 40 years of eating out alone.

I have eaten out alone for years. Even if they thought you were waiting for someone, they should have still asked if you wanted a drink while you waited.

It was crap service. It happens occasionally. I've also had crap service in a group from time-to-time. It might stop me eating in that particular place again, but it certainly doesn't stop me eating out alone when I want to or need to. There are so many things I'd have missed out on if I wasn't prepared to do things by myself.

It’s not my personal belief that women should only be with friends. I love my own company.

You've said this enough times in different ways that I think that perhaps it is your belief but you don't want to admit it?

I’m a woman in london and I eat out all the time alone I love it. I think you were nervous anyway and when he was rude you assumed it was because you’re a woman alone when in reality he’s just rude.

I think the most important thing to remember in these situations is that literally nobody else cares if you are eating alone. The waiters don't care, the other diners don't care. At most they will register it and then go about their business. The whole "what will people think" is almost a sort of arrogance- they most likely won't think anything and they certainly won't still be reflecting on it after the event, so why let that hold you back?

The only negative experience I had was at a B&B where the owner had three bookings cancelled the week before because an event had been postponed and she was clearly someone who liked to chat to guests - it was 7am on a Saturday morning and I just wanted to eat and drink coffee, not hear her life story I may have been feeling a little fragile. Very nice owner, but I really wasn't in the frame of mind to handle a slightly overexcitable BnB owner who had a week's worth of chat for 3 - 6 people all bottled up inside when even DP and the cats know not to even look at me until I'm on my second coffee.

I think that people don't tend to notice women eating alone as it tends to be older women than those in their twenties or early thirties, so societal invisibility comes into play, along with misogyny; I have had people say to me absolutely straightfaced that they believed any younger woman eating alone would be on the pull/on the game/having an affair and lying about it if they said they'd gone to a restaurant alone, both men and women.

It's bollocks. But it also creates a self fulfilling prophecy, as the more who are told that, the less likely they are to go out and see anyone else eating alone. Well, until you get to the point at which you don't give a fuck what anybody else thinks, you're hungry and want somebody else to cook rather than hide away with a supermarket salad and apologise for existing independently of men or children. and how dare anybody else restrict what you want to eat because of misogyny? Fuck that.

This is all a bit pathetic to be honest. I have been 'ignored' before when eating alone in a cafe/restaurant. The good thing about central London is that there will be literally dozens of other options within 200m of where you are sat. If I am on the receiving end of shoddy service I vote with my feet and find somewhere else where they actually seem to care. I don't sit there for a whole sodding hour trying to make eye contact with a disinterested waiter.

I am retired, as is my husband. He plays a lot of golf. It takes hours. I don't play golf so I do lots of other things, either alone ,or with a friend. I have eaten alone in restaurants many, many times without having your experience. I ask for a table for 1 and a menu. If I am meeting a friend I ask for a table for 2 and explain that I am waiting for a friend and will order when they arrive. Never had a problem.

I eat out quite a lot. I'm definitely out on my own for a coffee several times a week. Mainly it's independent cafes and small bistro type places but the odd upmarket one. No issues at all and I'm not the only one on my own.
Since the 80s I'm sure the vast majority of hospitality venues are used to women travelling solo for work and just out and about and to not treat them well would be idiocy. I think you had a pathetic waiter - who leaves a customer unattended for an hour, alone or not? And I think your self consciousness made it worse. Where was the manager keeping an eye on things? A table without food or drink is not earning! Next time speak up - your money is as good as anyone's.

As an airbnb host who only takes single women, I think I get many of my bookings because many of my guests are uncomfortable with staying in a hotel by themselves and eating out alone. Guests who have told me this have included a doctor, a radiologist, a vet and a solicitor.

I’ll always warn them that I don’t allow kitchen use here, before I let them book. However, I will let them use the living room table to eat at, and many of them bring back a takeaway or order food in. They seem to be very happy with that. It’s a shame really because I live in a popular seaside town with lots of great places to eat.

I've eaten out alone loads of times but only had a few negative experiences. One was in Sweden. I picked the wrong type of restaurant. It was full of couples and I sat right in the middle 🤣

I do it a fair amount, never had a problem