Allow Me to Digress

It’s something that you wouldn’t want to do as much as possible, and yet sometimes it’s inevitable. You may say that not wanting to be caught eating with an empty chair in front of you (or maybe empty chairs around you) has nothing to do about you being insecure or being afraid that other people might think of you as friendless and anti-social.  When you’re hungry (really hungry), who cares about what other people think?  Also, who cares about other people who you don’t know think about you? But there’s just something uncomfortable about eating alone. 

I can’t remember eating alone in a noisy cafeteria at school or at work.  A few years ago when I was a corporate slave, I always had my trusty workstation to keep me company for lunch when my friends weren’t there for me. (Hahaha! Before you think how pathetic I was, let me explain.  I had to be in front of my computer sometimes during lunch time because I had critical supervision to do.  Nothing critical to national security or anything, but it was still critical.  Critical for me to be able to get off from work a little bit earlier? It’s more than that, believe me.

You can just imagine your friends when they see you eating alone saying, “O, bat ka kumakain mag-isa?!” with the I-don’t-want-to-make-you-feel-I-pity-you-but-then-I-just-can’t-help-but-pity-you look.

Before I totally forget that you’re reading this to get tips, here they are.  They’re no big secret actually.  Everyone knows about it.  (I just have nothing better to do and I want to add my personal notes on it.   These are most effective when you have   to wait for a long time for your food to be served, unless you want to be just staring out window, passing time watching trains go by all of your life. Or watching sea birds (sea gulls?) fly, wishing there will be someone waiting there for you.  Ok ok, here are the tips:

1.      Bring a book or magazine.  This is the oldest trick to keep you preoccupied.       

2.      Bring your laptop.  I haven’t done this because my laptop is not too handy.  But I do see other people do it and they really look more cool and busy than lonely.     

3.      Bring a paper / notebook and pen. Feel free to do whatever you want with it.  You can sketch the people around you. Hehehe J  I often make my “to do’ list. One time I made a list of things I want to do before I die.  But then when I was at number 2, the food came, so I forgot about the list.    

4.      Make sure you have your cellphone with you.  This of course is the most popular tip.  The second to the last time I had dinner in a restaurant alone, I was talking to someone on my cellphone.  I happily chatted along until I realized that the place was so small that everyone can hear what I was saying.  (Iya, I was talking to you then. Hehehe   So there, I resulted to texting.       

Probably what makes it awkward or uncomfortable to eat alone is that food is best enjoyed with company.  Eating is not only made for physical nourishment but for social nourishment as well.  After all, we are social beings. (haha…I’m trying to sound smart here again. To make up for the not so smart things I wrote up there.)  We teach that even to children.  I remember saying to one of my former students, “What’s that you’re having?  Wow, pizza! It’s ‘bisabing’ in Mandarin. Do you know that Teacher Aileen loves pizza? And that it’s always very nice for people to share.  I have here a cookie, want to trade?”  (Of course, that happened – in my mind.)

I think the discomfort of eating alone is cultural.  We Filipinos share our food (or at least we invite other people to eat with us even if we don’t really mean it at times hehe   Hey, when I say it, I mean it! (As to how much I mean it, that will be my little secret.) 

When I was starting to write this post, I didn’t think that it will turn out to be this long.  I started out wanting to share an experience I had the other night (of course, when I ate alone), but then I think I’ll have to create a new post for that.  Stay tuned.   

By the way, I don’t eat out alone often, but I’m ok with eating alone.  Ok can mean a lot of things.  Hehe…. Maybe it’s just that maybe when one gets older, one becomes less self-conscious.  One thinks about more important things than what other people think.   

It goes without saying that if you don’t want to eat out alone you can always have your food to go.  Take out.  Dabao!

This post is dedicated to Vanessa. (Yung next post talaga dapat for you pero baka hindi ko na muna masulat. Busy e. Hehe   Happy birthday! =D

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 15th, 2006 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Anything about Anything, Edibles and Other Related Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.