I was recently joined on a bench in O’Connell Street, Dublin, by a man in a sludge-green coat and wide-brimmed hat who methodically pulled out, wiped and pocketed his false teeth, before bending down to the large plastic bag at his feet and pulling out a yoghurt. He turned to me, smiled, and then asked: “Would you ever find me a spoon?”
These things don’t happen so easily when you’re in a group: you’re much less approachable when eating as a couple; and none but the truly determined would approach a munching threesome. Which is why, at least once a week, I take myself out for a well-lit meal for one. I am, at this very moment, sitting in a cafe beside a woman with hair like a well-crafted plum duff, eating a cheese sandwich. At my other elbow a woman in pale blue headscarf and tweed jacket is pecking at a bowl of granola like a sparrow. In the corner, a man in gently darkening photochromic lenses is chewing through a plastic tub of what looks, from here, like gravel. We are all eating alone. And so, of course, none of us is eating alone.
Maybe we eat our evening meal alone because we live alone because we enjoy being alone and have the balls to go it alone
Related: How to embrace loneliness: a modern guide | Nell Frizzell
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