Today I was bored. My mum was working, my brother (now leading a nocturnal life in a typical teenage boy fashion) was sleeping, all my med friends were on placement and all my non-med friends were working. Usually, at times like these, I go for a run. But I already had two and a half hours of exercise planned for the evening, and because I'm trying to moderate my exercise from fanatical down to sustainable I decided, why not go out and eat food instead?
That's right. Eating food. In public. By myself.
I actually do this quite often, and those who know me already know this, but today was different. See, I always pretend to be completely comfortable going out and doing things by myself, but truthfully I'm always just that little bit aware of it. I go to the movies by myself; but I always take my phone and scroll through facebook or text people while I'm sitting in that cinema seat waiting for the lights to dim and the movie to start, careful to avoid the eye contact of others around me. I often get coffee or go out for lunch by myself; but I always bring a book, my ipad, or study stuff so that I can look busy and less alone, hoping no one will notice.
It's silly really, because if I was out having lunch with a group of friends and saw someone eating by themselves I would firstly, probably not even notice, and secondly, if I did notice, I wouldn't think anything of it. So surely, knowing this, I should feel completely comfortable doing the same myself right?
Wrong.
Because in my head I feel people are looking and saying "Look at that girl, by herself, she must be lonely, the poor thing".
But today I forgot my book and my phone went dead. So I went into the resturant, asked for a table for one, ordered a coffee and some food and then just sat there. By myself. Enjoying the atmosphere, the scenery, the people chatting around me, the music.
There were two girls, probably a few years younger than me, having lunch a couple of tables down. Because the resturant wasn't all that loud, I could hear every word of their conversation.
Girl 1: "That girl is here by herself" (talking about me)
Girl 2: (looking over) "Yeh"
Girl 1: "God, I wish I could do that"
Girl 2: "Yeh, me too, I always feel so judged"
Girl 1: "It must be nice to be so confident in yourself you don't care"
Girl 2: "Maybe we should give it a go"
Girl 1: "Yeh, maybe"
That's right. I ate alone and I was respected for it.
Who would have thought?
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