It started, as all self-indulgent habits do with me, in the midst of a failing relationship. I was twenty-five, drinking and drugging my way through the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, and desirous of something steady to hold me in place. He was twenty-seven, a pot-smoking recording engineer who had been raised to seek normalcy within an artistic life. He was the kind of man who calls you the day after a first date to tell you he had a nice time, even if you both got so drunk the night before you couldn’t remember what happened. He also had a hairy back, so I thought he would never leave me, but that I could easily leave him. I will never get attached to this back, I thought, the first time my fingers became entangled in the hair. But the safer I felt, the more I fell for him; soon enough, he pulled away and he was working late, always working late, and the only time I would see him was: late. And it made me feel empty, as if he had taken two scoopfuls of my insides with his hands and hollowed me out. Then one Friday night, I’d had enough. If he wouldn’t take me out on a date, I would take myself out. A movie, I thought. No, wait. Dinner.
I dressed up, which meant long unruly curls and a short skirt and black tights and Doc Martens, a baggy cardigan, and glitter on the eyelids. I smelled like incense, like something purchased on Broadway Avenue, a hundred sticks for two dollars. This was me being fancy. I was a ragged stoner rocker then; I was doing the best I could. I took a book and went down to Broadway, to the one sushi restaurant I could afford, the one in the minimall that had torn carpeting in the upstairs seating, which is where they wanted to put me, the table for one, but I insisted on sitting downstairs. I wanted people to see me. This was a declaration of independence. I liked the idea of being served. Someone out there was going to take care of my needs. I ordered a pile of sushi and rolls, fresh eel and tuna, California rolls. I indulged. Still young enough to hear echoes of feminist lit classes ringing in my ears, I read something by Margaret Atwood. I crossed and uncrossed my legs. I flipped the pages with great gusto. At home, I ate quickly, but here I was eating leisurely. I was daring someone to see me alone on a Friday night.
At the end of the dinner, as I paid my check, I counted out a few extra singles, tipping harder than usual. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t afford it. In my world, a dream date ended with an outrageous tip (although ideally I would not be the one tipping). I stretched, finished my water, and strolled to the door. I rubbed my belly. Even if I was still alone, I felt full. The fullness and emptiness could somehow live side by side. I didn’t feel lonely. Certainly, I was happier than if I had waited at home, miserable. If I had to be alone, this was the best way to do it.
A few weeks later I found out he was screwing a stage manager in her thirties who reportedly had a British persona in bed. She said things like arse and bum in a Cockney accent, and she gave fantastic blow jobs. How do you compete with that? Still, I cried in his beat-up Toyota Tercel when he broke up with me, sad that I would never again tangle my hands in the wild tropical forest that grew on his back.
But I knew now that some kind of fullness could be attained by dining out alone. I’ll show you who I am, I thought. I’m the girl who knows how to take care of her own needs since no one else knows how. Or is willing. I returned to that sushi restaurant many times on Friday nights over the next few years. I read a lot of books. I stuffed my face until I couldn’t eat another bite. I was full. I was empty. I was learning how to survive.
After a while I started doing drugs alone instead of dining alone. It was a different kind of self-indulgence, but I was still spending money on something I didn’t really need—Does anyone need to eat so much sushi her belly expands an extra size? Or to get so high she feels like her face is going to fly off?—but that I knew would make me feel special in some way. They were both highs of a kind, although one made me fat and one made me skinny. This was after I had left Seattle and moved to the East Village in New York in the hope of changing my life forever, which I did, although it has changed several times since then, as is New York’s wont.
But first: I became slightly flush with dot-com money, all of which is gone now. In particular there was a summer when I consumed thousands of dollars’ worth of cocaine, and I distinctly remember this was often in lieu of food. And while I did do it with friends on occasion, I enjoyed being alone on a Friday night, so that I could have it any way I wanted, whenever I wanted. At least until the bag ran empty.
Eventually, I took a trip to Jamaica to clean out my system. I know this seems preposterous, but all I knew about Jamaica was that people smoked pot there, and pot seemed to be a minor disturbance in my life compared with my all-consuming desire for cocaine. Plus, without any of my usual resources—no friends, no pager numbers—it might be easier to avoid. Of course, within five minutes of my arriving at Sangster International Airport, a boy approached me while waiting for my baggage and asked me if I wanted to buy drugs. He was probably about seventeen years old, and if I had let him, he probably would have tried to feel me up.
“We have to do it fast,” I said. “I’m waiting for my bags.”
The boy laughed at me. Those bags were going to take forever.
I went with him to his car, a two-door piece of tinfoil with a cardboard protector in the window to keep out the sun. He pulled out a few bags of pot in different sizes, the smallest of which still contained more than I could smoke in several months. I think it probably cost twenty-five dollars. I bought it. Encouraged, he pulled out a white sandwich baggie of cocaine. My heart leapt at the sight. I was sure the same math applied—all you could eat and more.
But I passed. The sun already felt so nice on my skin, like I was an egg heating up in a pan on the stove. Besides, the resort was all inclusive. I was most excited about the meals. It would be like a whole week of dates with myself. Everything was going to be just as I liked, and I was looking forward to eating again.
At the resort—one that I had specifically selected because it had no hedonistic selling points in the brochure—I checked in, drew a bath, and lit up a joint. I had stayed up too late the night before. I hoped I was sweating out every last drop of coke in my system, though of course I missed the irony of replacing it with another drug. (I missed a lot of ironies in those days.)
I took a pleasant walk around the grounds, took off my shoes and squished my feet in the sand, and then headed to dinner by myself.
The open-air restaurant glowed in candlelight, and at every table sat pairs of madly-in-love young couples, holding hands across the table, leaning in close, their fresh sunburns glowing against their stiff, new formal summerwear.
“Table for…?” asked the maitre d’.
“One,” I said, with slight uncertainty. I was just one, yes, but oh boy did I not want to be at that moment. How had I missed the fact that this was a romantic getaway?
I ate quickly, shoveled that food in my mouth, and got the hell out of there. It was one thing to be alone on a Friday night in a major metropolis. It was quite another thing to be alone in a room full of people hell-bent on romance. Proclamations of love would be declared that night. Marriage proposals would be made. Babies would be conceived.
No, I won’t have any dessert or coffee.
The food barely filled me. I could have eaten forever, and I wouldn’t have felt a thing.
The next morning I went to breakfast, in search of the smashing buffet of tropical fruits that the brochure had promised.
“Table for one, please,” I said.
“Just one?”
“Just one.”
I sat at the table, and the maitre d’ promptly removed the opposing place setting. Minutes later, a waiter walked by, saw me with my lone place setting, and tried to set another one.
“No, it’s just one,” I said.
That I was forced to be insistent seemed unfair. I felt my “one” transforming into “alone.” That was an entirely different sensation.
As I walked to the buffet, I passed sleep-deprived couples, still rosy with the memories of their morning copulation. I tried hard to ignore them, focusing instead on my destination, which was indeed smashing: a gigantic circular table piled with sliced mangoes and strawberries and oranges and pineapples, steaming trays of scrambled eggs and eggs Benedict and sausage and bacon and five kinds of bread, plus those little minibagels and English muffins and French toast—oh, they were so international!—all surrounding a lustrous flower display that burst forth from the center as if the flowers were fireworks on the Fourth of July, asking us to God bless America, although in this case, it was Jamaica.
When I returned to my table, the place setting had been restored; some anxious waiter unable to bear a half-dressed table, I suppose, had compulsively followed some training manual to the letter.
As soon as I put down my plate a waiter swooped on my coffee cup.
“Would he like coffee?” said the waiter, pointing to the cup across from mine.
“It’s just one,” I said firmly.
The place setting was once again removed.
I won’t bother mentioning what happened when I went up for seconds.
I felt my heart sink into my gut. My morning buffet fantasy, crushed by the heel of a well-shined waiter’s shoe! This game could not be played for a week, this “Who’s on first?” for the solo female traveler. I would be devastated by the end of the trip, I knew it. I liked choosing to eat alone. I did not want to be reminded I had no other options.
So I took protective measures. For the rest of the trip, I ordered room service and ate in my hotel room. I would wake up in the morning, pick up the phone, and order an omelet or a fresh fruit plate and lots of coffee, please. Then I would smoke a joint from the never-ending bag of pot until the food arrived. Eventually I grew to hate that bag of pot. I was never going to be able to smoke all of it. And strangely, it was making me feel emptier.
Halfway through the trip I walked out onto the balcony of my room and emptied it. The green leaves flew into the sea air.
Now I live in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, far enough from Manhattan and my bad habits. My dates with myself are quieter now; drugs are no longer involved. The dates are no longer designed to attract attention, nor are they declarations of independence. Dining alone is simply a part my life, a ritual I can’t imagine living without.
What I do is this: I buy a copy of Us Weekly (a magazine I usually read only on long airplane rides, when indulgence is necessary to get through the deadening claustrophobia), and I go to a restaurant in my neighborhood called Diner, a hipster-appropriated version of an original diner. They serve cheeseburgers but they also serve things like roasted beet and cucumber salad with ricotta salata. The members of the waitstaff could double as dirty downtown New York models. And probably are dirty downtown New York models. The food is always fresh, and they play great music, an on-point indie rock soundtrack, and there’s plenty of eye candy, young and old (and by old I mean not yet forty) folks from the neighborhood. Usually they don’t distract me from my magazine or meal.
There’s a long bar in the center of the restaurant lined with comfortable leather stools perfect for the solo diner, although I sometimes I feel I’m sitting too close to the person next to me. We are all good at ignoring one another, though, the solo diners.
Sometimes I see someone from my apartment building. I live in a huge building, eleven floors, ten apartments or so on each floor, with an ever-changing influx of residents, artists, musicians, Europeans, and the occasional slumming advertising executive who wants to see what all the fuss is about with this neighborhood of ours. But it’s the old-timers, the artists, who I know the best. We nod hello, not much more than that. It’s fine. I’m here with someone. Me.
Once I talked to one of my neighbors, a guy in his late thirties who lives a few floors up from me. He was sitting at one corner of the counter; I was on the opposing side of that corner. It’s the only way you can sit comfortably and have a reasonable conversation. I was drinking wine; his glass was full of a caramel-colored liquor and some ice. I asked him about being an artist in Williamsburg, as I was writing about that a bit at that time, and he seemed suddenly eager to talk.
“I work mostly with metal,” he told me, “but I do some film work, too.”
There was something faint in his voice, a far-off accent scrubbed mostly away. I thought maybe he was Austrian. Or Dutch. I knew we were both surprised to hear our voices out loud—I hadn’t spoken to anyone in a few days, except via e-mail—and we talked carefully, testing them. It was nice to be heard.
And then I said, “You know, I’ve heard the art scene in Williamsburg is kind of a boys’ club.”
And he cooled to me. I saw him recede. And I realized I had fucked it all up. I almost always fuck it all up.
So mainly I sit and eat quietly. I smile at whatever bartender is working, but never engage him (or sometimes her) in conversation. I tip well. I eat whatever I want, and I take as long as I want, but I am usually in and out in less than an hour. It’s just enough time to please myself, to satisfy the urge to be served and fed delicious food. I also want to make sure I’m connecting with the world since I spend so much time by myself, scribbling in my notebooks at home. But I know not to stay too long. I eavesdrop too often. I notice happy couples coupling. Too long and I’ll wonder why I’m still alone.
This is not meant to mislead: I do not lead an empty life. There is my work, there are my friends. Occasionally I busy myself with falling in and out of love. But nothing quite fills me up like taking care of myself, taking care of my desires. Often the fullness lasts only for a minute, and then like the pain that comes from a pinch of skin, it is gone. But it’s better than not having eaten at all.
Roasted Beet and Cucumber Salad with Ricotta Salata
1 bunch beets
Salt, to taste
Extra-virgin olive oil
Red wine vinegar
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 English cucumber
1 bunch radishes
1/4 to 1/2 red onion
1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon chopped fresh mint (or more to taste)
Ricotta salata
TO ROAST THE BEETS:
Remove tops and wash the beets. Place the beets in a roasting pan and sprinkle with salt and olive oil. Add a little water to the pan to prevent beets from sticking. Roast in 350º F oven until beets are easily pierced with a knife. Let cool, then peel off the skins and slice thec beets into quarter-inch slices. Toss with a little vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper.
FOR THE CUCUMBER SALAD:
Make this at least half an hour before serving to let the vegetables soften. Peel the cucumber in alternating strips, then cut it in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Slice on the bias into quarter-inch slices. Slice the radishes into thin rounds. Cut the red onion in half and slice it as thin as possible against the grain. As with the beets, toss the cucumber, radishes, and onion with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper as well as the dill and mint.
Place beets on the plate, put the cucumber salad on top of the beets, and shave ricotta salata on top.
NOTE: Recipe courtesy of Caroline Fidanza, Diner, Brooklyn, New York.