Going Solo, Part II: Everybody's Watching

When I first moved to Provo (the real first time) I wanted to take up running. I'm not sure why; it just seemed like a good idea. But while I was perfectly serious about wanting to pick up running, I was really, genuinely worried about having to run alone. It had absolutely nothing to do with safety. Rather, I was afraid of what having to run all by myself might say about me. I was afraid that if people saw me out running alone, they would feel sorry for me, and think I had no friends. I guess I was a little afraid that their perception would be true (this was the first time I'd ever had to start from scratch, and what if it turned out that I couldn't make friends?). But I was more afraid of people thinking it was true.

Looking back, it seems like a silly fear. I found friends at BYU, and I found running friends, but I also learned that no one thinks anything of someone out running alone. Lots of people like to run with running partners, but at least as many interesting, socially adept people run by themselves. It's a perfectly socially acceptable activity.

But there are other activities that could be done entirely on one's own, and yet are not quite socially acceptable to do. Try googling "going to the movies alone" and you'll find a barrage of self-conscious questions: Is it weird if I do it? Have you ever done it? What's it like? Is there something wrong with me if I don't see anything wrong with seeing a movie by myself? Is it socially acceptable? Is it brave? Or just pathetic? We live in a pretty extroverted society, I think (not meaning that most people are extroverts, but that extroversion is more socially condoned than introversion). You can do outdoorsy things alone, because people tend to go outdoors to get away from it all. But if you want to stay inside civilization - go to a movie, a concert, an amusement park, a sporting event - you're technically supposed to do it with other people.

For me, the last frontier of Things You Could Legitimately Do by Yourself But That Society Says You Have to Do with Other People is going to a sit-down restaurant. I can eat alone in a Wendy's or a Panera if I'm far from home and need food, and I will still feel perfectly fine about myself and my social life. But if I try to imagine myself in the same situation (far from home and in need of food) going out for, say, Indian food or Italian, it's a sad and lonely picture. So I pretty much don't. Going out to eat is at the limits of my introversion and one of those things that not only do I prefer to do with other people, but that I generally don't even consider doing without them.

The first time I tested the limits of my introversion was shortly after returning from my teaching stint in Virginia. I had driven from Utah to Oregon to visit a friend who had just gotten home from her mission, and was en route to California to spend a few days with my family. The trip from Portland to Los Angeles was too long to make in a day, and I stopped overnight somewhere in central California. It was dinnertime when I stopped and after checking into my hotel I scanned my dinner options. I had my choice of fast food, but there was also this bustling, campy, touristy A-frame Bavarian restaurant, that would have reminded me a bit of downtown Frankenmuth if I had known about Frankenmuth at that time in my life. I didn't feel like McDonald's. I chose the Bavarian restaurant.

This was a bad decision. When the host asked, "Just one?" I felt certain that she was thinking, "Really? All by yourself? You poor, sad creature." When the waiter came to take my drink order, he asked, "Is it just you tonight?" in what I took to be a condescending, judgmental tone, and I tried to act poised and confident, but I felt like crawling under the table and hiding from the stares of the waiter and the families and older couples who I felt sure kept casting sidelong glances in my direction. I buried my nose in a book and ordered a chef salad and ate about half of it before asking for the bill and retreating back to the comfortable seclusion of my motel room with a McDonald's milkshake.

I'm not sure why the experience was so traumatizing for me. I had been on the road and feeling independent and grown-up and adventurous, and all I had to do was walk into a restaurant and it all crumbled. It took me a long, long, long time to get up the nerve to try again. But that's a story for part III (don't worry, it's mostly already written and won't take me nearly as long to get to as part II did). In the meantime, have you gone to restaurants, movies, concerts, sporting events, or other more-socially-acceptable-to-do-with-other-people venues?