Do Only Dangerous Men Dine Alone?
“Why did I decide to travel alone?” I cursed myself silently while walking to a restaurant ten minutes away from my hotel. Ten minutes that felt more like ten days.
The crisp, autumnal wind sniping at me from the sloshing waters seemed to portend something ominous.
*
A week ago, I had some holidays left to take and decided to book an impromptu solo trip to Venice. It was my first time not only in Venice, but also travelling alone. I had woken up on a grey, wet October morning and in a burst of energy and vigour decided to book the trip and give it a go.
“It can’t be that bad,” I thought. “Hordes of people do it. I just need to pick a place where there is lots to see and do so that I am constantly busy, that would make me feel less lonely.”
For the next two hours, I scrolled through a few travel blogs and magazines. I booked museums, hotels, travel passes, and in the process created a detailed itinerary.
As was wont to happen, the initial wave of excitement and adrenaline eventually ebbed to make its way for the incoming wave of anxiety.
*
The morning of my departure, I woke up very early, still in a daze. It was still dark outside, but my alarm had gone off. I needed to catch my flight at daybreak.
At the airport gate, I nervously approached the attendant with my passport and ticket.
“Will they ask me why I am flying alone? I need to have a credible story,” my mind raced as I inched closer to the desk.
“Sir, your ticket and passport please,” she called and I handed the documents over, which she duly passed back after a green light went on, following which I made my way quietly to my seat.
A couple of hours later, I was standing on the deck of a boat, sprayed with water from the sea, hair blowing in the wind, Venice in sight. Nothing prepares you for your first glimpse of Venice, and I soon forgot all about my anxieties.
Like clockwork, I checked in to the hotel, freshened up, re-read my itinerary for the day and was off. It was only at seven in the evening, on this walk to my first dinner alone that my misgivings re-emerged.
*
The restaurant was as the website had described; friendly, cosy, and approachable.
“Hello, I have a reservation for one person for seven fifteen?”
“Oh yes sir, please follow me,” the young man at the door smiled. He led me through a maze of tables to the back and offered me one of two options. The tables were two-seaters, making me feel a pinch of guilt for having them lose the custom of one.
Having been seated, a wine list was placed in front of me. My anxiety at dining alone led me to seek respite in alcohol and I pored judiciously over the rows of wines listed. The waiter, an amiable local who was all too pleased to serve me, came back with some water in a few minutes.
“Could I have the Chianti please?”
“Oh sir, I should have mentioned more clearly. The wines are all by the bottle, will you be having a bottle?” I couldn’t quite place the tone of the question – was it tinged in sarcasm or merely naïve.
“Uh…hmm…no, I’d rather not. What wines do you have by the glass?”
“We have our house wine, I will bring that over.”
“Great thank you.” He left with an apologetic smile leaving me to play with my fingers, concentrating quite heavily on the ridges in the skin, tracing them around repeatedly.
I felt a bit more relaxed with the wine glass in my hand, ready to look up from the table, and my fingers, to face my fellow diners.
“I wonder why they have put me in this table all the way at the back. They must know that dining alone can be difficult….or maybe it’s bad for business?”
“Oh and why does that couple keep looking over at me, studiously trying to avoid eye contact?”
“Is there something on my face? Am I that pitiable?”
I gulped wine every time a concerning thought crossed my mind. “The wine will help, I mean think of all the people who dine alone, in books, in films! It cannot be that novel,” I declared and mustered up enough courage to smile to myself.
As if on cue, the waiter approached with the food menu, which I was only too glad to be forced to peruse through, taking an incessantly long time to make a decision.
“I will have the spinach ravioli please.”
“Of course, a very good choice,” the waiter responded, deftly snatching the menus away from the table.
“Dinners on holidays are meant to be luxurious affairs – myriad courses, multitude of glasses. But its best I just stick to a quick and filling meal,” I decided. “There is no point sitting around drawing unwanted attention.”
I glanced at my phone, and flicked through the news, work emails and scrolled through old photos, all in an attempt to distract my idle mind.
Just as I was getting ready to take another sip of wine from my glass, a family walked in to the restaurant and were led to one of the tables near where I was sat. The two children, about five years old, loudly inquired as to why I was eating alone at which point, the parents, thoroughly embarrassed, shushed them up and gave me weak smiles.
“What can I do but smile back,” I thought incredulously, wondering how lousy my smile must seem. “Fake.”
“Why have we, as a society, decided that certain things must be done in the company of others – dinner, cinema, museums; even when these activities do not necessarily lend themselves to a more social demeanour. One should not really be speaking while eating or watching a film or quietly walking about an exhibit. Yet the horror that the thought of doing these activities alone evokes is palpable.”
This train of thought had captivated me to such an extent that I woke with a start when the waiter returned with my ravioli. I thanked him hurriedly and returned my attentions to the task at hand – eating quickly.
There was something in me that would not, however, allow myself to descend into eating in an unsightly manner solely in order to get out of that restaurant. As though, eating with panache would restore some dignity to my wounded person. And thus, I proceeded to gently, without making undue noise or mess, make my way through the generous portion.
I was known to be a slow eater, and growing up my mother would constantly berate me for it.
“Why are you letting the food go cold?”
“Don’t you have better things to do than stare at your food?”
“I don’t want to wait around here for you to be done so that I can clean up after you.”
But the desire to absolve oneself of an imaginary shame can be such a powerful catalyst that I managed to finish my ravioli, daintily so, in about ten minutes.
The waiter came by with a look of both awe and bemusement.
“He should be happy, he will get his table back early and can seat a more profitable dining party,” I muttered under my breath seeing his wry smile.
I was handed a dessert menu in spite of not expressing any desire for something sweet to finish off the meal. As courtesy demands, I pretended to give the menu a look over.
“The tiramisu sounds amazing, but I just want to be done with this dinner. That family keeps staring at me. I am pretty sure they must be worried for their kids, thinking I am someone dangerous.”
“Do only dangerous men dine alone?” I must have managed to say that out loud enough for the waiter to hear me and shoot a quizzical look my way, as if unsure if I was actually dangerous.
“Oh, sorry, ignore me. I don’t think I will be having any dessert. I feel quite stuffed. Could I please have the bill?”
The waiter nodded back at me, flashed a slight smile and dashed off to wait at more exciting tables; tables where patrons were having desserts and bottles of alcohol.
Waiting for the bill seemed to take forever, it was as if they had forgotten to charge me for the food.
“Maybe they think of feeding me as some charity case,” I began to dread. I would keep checking my phone in case there were any notifications, imagining I was in demand. A ripple of laughter from the other end of the restaurant shattered my ruminations.
I needed to use the bathroom and proceeded to follow the well-lit and hard to miss directions. I felt a relief in getting up and having a purpose to my actions and ended up taking longer than one would expect for a simple wee.
I slowly made my way back to the table with a mixture of dread and relief that the ordeal was almost over and I could head back to the safety of my hotel room.
As I approached my table, I noticed that the bill had been left by the waiter, neatly folded. He had also left two chocolate truffles, a parting gift.
My teeth covered in chocolate as I popped the second truffle in, I thought, “These truffles are so soft and delicious, but I can’t help feeling like the unwanted recipient of charity.” The luxuriousness of the truffles quickly dissipated such thoughts, as indulgence is wont to do.
Gulping down the remaining glass of water, I stuck my hand in my pocket fishing for my wallet. I cannot describe in words the enormous sense of relief I felt as I put my card on top of the neatly folded bill. The relief was however short-lived, as the act of paying continued to stretch on for aeons.
I twiddled my thumbs and hazarded a look around the restaurant to see who else was dining with me that night. The restaurant had filled up a lot since I had begun my dinner. The two glasses of wine and the chocolate had steeled me for these last glances of the restaurant and the chance to watch the mannerisms of people out to dine.
At last, the waiter returned to the table with the card machine, perhaps remembering that he needed the table back.
“Oh sir, so sorry to keep you waiting,” he apologised loudly while tapping his fingers at the card machine. “This machine takes forever to connect. I am so sorry about it.”
“Oh, it’s okay. You don’t need to apologise for it,” I laughed back.
“Do you mind me asking you a question?” And without waiting for my response, he continued, “What brings you to Venice?”
“Well, I had some holidays to take and I had never seen Venice.”
“And, forgive me for being direct, you are travelling alone sir?”
“Yes, yes, quite alone.”
“I think it takes a tremendous amount of courage to travel alone. Though I feel it is the best, you are free to do as you please with no one nagging you to go shopping or stop to take pictures or too tired to go on walking. You can go for a late night stroll, have coffee with a beautiful local, and there are no rules or questions.”
I was caught a bit off guard by his outburst, and managed a smile coupled with some vigorous nodding to make up for my loss of words.
“But more important than the freedom is the courage, definitely. Being able to spend time in one’s thoughts, without the distractions of conversation or technology, buonissimo!”
The intense hand gesturing with the kiss blown in the air at the end were much too expressive for me to not laugh in merriment.
“I guess so,” I managed to say before being cut off by the loud noise the machine began making as it printed my receipt.
“This has been a lovely evening, and hope you have a good night,” I responded cheerfully forgetting all of the anxieties that dominated the meal.
As I put my jacket on, I thought to myself, “That waiter is right, it does take a lot of courage.” With a smug smile on my face, I exited the restaurant.