“How many?” the smiling hostess asks.
“Just 1,” I stumbled, my face burning.
(just (adv.) simply; only; no more than. Why did I feel the need to add that judgmental word? to underscore the fact that those who dine alone are obviously less than compared to their coupled counterparts?)
“Table for 1?” the waitress confirms in a tone I imagine carries equal parts sympathy and disbelief, “Outside or inside?”
“Outside, please.”
“Right this way,” she says leading me to an idyllic cafe table under stringed lights.
Did her voice contain a hint of pity? Or was I just being paranoid?
Around me, revelrous groups of girlfriends in sundresses sipped champagne; seemingly happy couples shared plates of bread and melted brie. I was the only person seated alone. I felt like a loser, a freak, the new kid at school condemned to eat lunch by herself.
“Saturday night and all alone. How sad!” I imagined the couples thinking.
As I ate my tagliatelle and truffle cream sauce, I wondered: why is there such a stigma about being alone?
I can dine alone (at least if I have the company of a book), but I can’t imagine doing other things—going to a concert, the movies—without the security of other people. The idea of going to the ticket counter and announcing “1 adult ticket for the 6:30 please” fills me with inconceivable anxiety. Would the girl at the ticket counter judge me? “What kind of maladjusted loser goes to the movies alone? She must be a lonely cat lady/friendless freak!”
Today there’s a little less stigma around doing things alone. The idea of romanticizing your life, specifically quiet nights by yourself, has exploded on TikTok. As of September 2024, the hashtag #solo dates is mentioned in 24.2 million posts. The social media platform is flooded with ideas for your next solo sojourn: take yourself to a Monday matinee, go to an art museum, treat yourself to a latte at your favorite cafe. Others recommend going to concerts and raves. The truly courageous visit entirely new countries.
In her stirring memoir, Arrangements in Blue, poet Amy Key, who’s written stunningly about maternal ambivalence and the struggle of being single in a world of compulsory coupledom, explores the embarrassment and empowerment of traveling alone.
In one of my favorite chapters “Strangers,” Key makes an interesting argument: a holiday with others isn’t really a holiday at all. Oftentimes if you’re a single woman traveling with friends and family who are married and have children, you’re expected to shoulder the bulk of the domestic labor—cleaning up the hotel room, caring for the children—simply because you’re single. Parents, the idea goes, “need” a break. After all, why would a single person with “no” responsibilities need rest? Isn’t their life already the epitome of unfettered freedom? of repose and refreshment?
The unmarried have to pay, both literally and figuratively, for being single. Not only do single people have to bear the financial burden of living alone without getting the tax benefits of married couples, their struggles are minimized or completely ignored. Ultimately, the coupled regard the single as undeserving of escapism:
“I had a hunch that it wasn’t just gender that created these labour conditions, it was my singleness, my childlessness. In group settings there can be an expectation that the female childless person should give the parenting persons ‘a break’ from chores for the duration so they can rest. I would find myself aggrieved because, as I live alone, I did all my own chores everyday with the same drudgery as everyone else. I wanted my own break—the opportunity to slip from the dailiness of my life, from always having to share space and be placatory to the needs of the wider group—my flatmates, my family. To have a holiday from what I felt others were looking for from me, and my image of myself within those structures. I didn’t want to feel as though I was existing within a hierarchy of who deserved a rest and escapism the most.”
If she’s going to get real relaxation—Key realizes—she’s going to have to holiday by herself. But the prospect of traveling alone is anxiety-inducing. Could she manage the practical matters of the trip? Could she book (and pay) for her own hotel? get dinner reservations? find her boarding gate? buy her plane ticket? Could she find her way in an unfamiliar place? Could she pay for things in a different currency and communicate in an entirely different language?
Rather than immediately book a one-way ticket to Barbados, Key takes baby steps:
“At first, I went on a group holiday but stayed in a house on my own, spending the days with others and then retreating into my own space at night. This felt like a perfect balance, the option to be together or apart. Then I stayed on alone for a few days after they’d left, acclimatizing. After that I booked a week’s holiday and invited two friends to join me for a couple of days. These were the holiday equivalent of riding a bike with stabilizers on, helping build my confidence for taking off on my own. I found it easy to be on my own, especially if I was in a self-catering place, somewhere there wasn’t much exposure, where no one could identify me as a person alone. I didn’t need to work at any kind of self-acceptance because I was removed from being perceived, and that enabled me to stop perceiving myself too.”
Once she gains more confidence, Key finally books her first solo trip to Sri Lanka. Hoping to “fake it till she makes it,” she adopts a new identity, that of a “self-possessed” solo traveller:
“To go on that trip, to create the momentum I felt was necessary to enter the holiday in the right spirit, I adopted a persona: self-possessed solo traveller woman. A prototype of the glamorous adult I had expected to become. For the first time, I bought myself an airplane outfit—loose-fitting, comfy layers, something that could be slept in. At the airport, I bought a pair of Prada sunglasses, drank a single glass of champagne before heading to the boarding gate. I’d prepared a pouch for my carry-on bag, with an eye mask, ear plugs, noise-cancelling headphones, a lightweight blanket, a cooling face spray. The idea is that this preparation helps to deliver you into holiday as a refreshed, dewy, composed person.”
“We are familiar with the notion that the reality of travel is not what we anticipate. The pessimistic school…therefore argues that reality must always be disappointing. It may be truer and more rewarding to suggest that it is primarily different,” British philosopher Alain de Botton once said. This is certainly true in Key’s case. Though she imagines her solo-traveling self will be a perfectly put together woman in Prada sunglasses, reality collides with her expectations. After an 11 hour flight to Sri Lanka from London, Key is frazzled, sleep-deprived and dehydrated:
“This has not been my experience. No matter what provision I make, I feel I enter the holidays in a state of derangement. Spillage on my loungewear, my complexion uneven like the skin on the top of a rice pudding, dehydrated from accepting every free wine, a drained phone from too much agitated playing of Candy Crush. My airplane novel unread. But I am undeterred. Each solo trip provides another chance to play the part right, to crack the glamour out of me.”
At her postcard-perfect beachside resort, single people are nearly extinct: they’re as rarely seen as the Loch Ness monster or Big Foot. Here singlehood is a spectacle: when Key does things alone, she feels like a monstrous creature at the zoo. To the coupled, she’s an object of curiosity: why was she by herself? would she care to join their table? The married find it hard to believe that someone, specifically a woman, could delight in a dinner alone.
I’m reminded of the iconic opening line of Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” For the couples at the resort, the truth is a woman over 40 must be in want of a dining companion, someone to share a plate of cacio e pepe and split a bottle of white wine.
Why is it so hard to believe that a woman could rejoice in a holiday by herself?
A single woman sipping a mai tai on a beach is the equivalent of seeing a monkey on Mars: it doesn’t belong. Candlelit dinners and chocolate fondue are the realm of romance, belonging to couples and couples alone. As a society, love is something expressed between two people—not showered on oneself. A romantic getaway is synonymous with spoiling ourselves: we soak in sparkling seas and azure skies; we watch pink tangerine sunsets in Mykonos; we flirt with life; we have a fling with a specific locale. In other words, we find love outside the context of romantic love.
To holiday alone is to undermine the widely held belief that you need a significant other to experience affection. As Miley Cyrus sings, “I can buy myself flowers” (or take myself to the Amalfi Coast for a 3 week vacation).
To some, holidaying by yourself is a selfish form of decadence. Single people—the idea goes—don’t deserve bubbly champagne and all-inclusive resorts and spa days and sunsets.
Though Key longs to eat at a table that offers gorgeous beach views, she hesitates because she feels she’s intruding on a space reserved for couples:
“I both wanted to eat at this table and knew I could not subject myself to the scrutiny of it. Is she a divorcee? Was she jilted? Why is she alone? These questions were not simply the paranoid thoughts of someone holidaying solo, they were the questions in the minds of the couples holidaying there, who probed me—the why? pressing behind the actual questions they asked, the slightly pitiful way they invited me to join them for a drink or an excursion. I did not take them up on it. It can seem like an affront that someone would prefer, would find it more enjoyable, to be alone. When I’m sat at a table alone, I wonder how I indicate to others that I am not waiting to be joined by someone, I don’t desire that to happen. I am alone without regret. But it would be better to reach a point where I’m free of thoughts of how others perceive me.”
Despite the stigma surrounding solo traveling, there’s nothing more empowering than going to a far-flung place alone. Certainly if you can navigate strange streets in a foreign city, you can navigate other difficult things as well. After all, what’s a challenging conversation with your partner or a career change compared to finding your way on the Paris metro?
Key once thought glamour was being a cosmopolitan jet setter, a woman of the world who could speak 3 languages and emerge from a 12 hour flight looking elegant.
But she soon realizes “glamour” isn’t glamorous at all.
Glamour isn’t about wearing Chanel No 5 or fur stoles—glamour is independence, it’s knowing how to pleasure and pamper yourself:
“Perhaps travel was less about glamour and more about developing the confidence to know I could look after myself in new, unpredictable environments. I hadn’t realized glamour meant the ability to adapt to changes, to find ways to communicate in difficulty, to make myself heard when there’s noise I can’t control. It turned out glamour was an action, not an aesthetic. It was glamorous to make my own arrangements, to pay my own bills, to decide when to stay and when to leave. To create my own rules for pleasure. Perhaps I was more glamorous than I thought.”
In my mind, there are two types of vacations: those defined by daring and those defined by relaxation. The former conjures images of adventure and adrenaline: sand surfing in the Sahara, snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. The latter evokes margaritas on a white sand beach, aimless hours spent doing nothing but sleeping and suntanning.
For Key, glamour is self-acceptance: rather than feel like she “should” be exploring this exciting new land and doing something adventurous, she makes peace with the fact that she’ll always prefer the restorative type of vacation. All she needs is a good book, a cool drink and a refreshing body of water to swim in:
“It felt to me that I’d experienced this holiday as an actual holiday, rather than going through the motions of a holiday in the hope I could trick myself into experiencing one. I took myself as I was—that meant following my instinct for rest over adventure and accepting that, rather than seeing it as a failure that I wasn’t exploring this new country. I just wanted to sit with my little drink, reading my little book, swimming then drying off, then swimming again.”
Later, Key treats herself to a trip to Vietnam for her 40th birthday. At the brink of a new decade, she surrenders to her desire for a simple, serene getaway:
“I went to Phu Quoc, staying at a small resort in a beachfront room so I could be in the water in moments. I would swim in the sea after breakfast each day, then in the afternoon swim in the hotel’s pool in between reading and drinking cocktails. Then I’d have another sea swim, shower, dress for dinner. After I’d eaten, I’d read in bed before going to sleep early. I didn’t need to do anything else, I only sought the recalibrating effect of being in and close to the water, for the slowing down and contraction of my days to a small number of activities, and in that slowdown, a quiet would settle within me.”
However, solo sojourns are not all striped umbrellas and pina coladas—sometimes a picturesque setting makes our loneliness all the more poignant. Turquoise seas and shorelines studded with palm trees matter little if we don’t have someone to share it with.
No matter how much we love ourselves—treat ourselves to extravagant trips, indulge in spa days and hot bubble baths—we still need the love of family, of friends (This is my issue with the self-care movement and much of social media “therapy”: it encourages an unhealthy form of hyper-independence that only makes us more lonely).
Should we show ourselves tenderness and affection? Of course. Can we give ourselves everything a partner can: warmth, attention, respect, understanding? Absolutely. But just because we can “love ourselves,” doesn’t mean we no longer need connection, companionship, or community.
Miley Cyrus was half right. We can buy ourselves flowers—but we can still want (and need) flowers from others.
As Key swims in her lavish hotel’s sparkling swimming pool, she feels her lack of love all the more sharply:
“I would never be loved in the body I am in by by someone I could trust with it. I had never felt loved in the body I am in. How could I enjoy a shell-shaped pool when I didn’t know if I would ever feel loved? I was desiccating from the lack of it.”
A vacation is a respite from reality. When we soar across the Atlantic or take a train through the Swiss Alps, we’re looking to escape the difficulties of our day-to-day selves.
Travel is one of the only socially acceptable forms of escapism. A change of scenery—the idea goes—can cure what ails us. Just go through a break up? Get away for while…go to Hawaii! Having an existential crisis? Recreate your own Eat, Pray, Love and meditate at an ashram in India or devour endless plates of spaghetti in Italy!
We travel to “escape” but we can never escape ourselves, at least not entirely. Our problems will sneak into our suitcase, follow us thousands of miles to Hawaii. A tropical backdrop with an ocean breeze and coconut trees may starkly contrast our ordinary lives but we’re still our same old selves (“I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island,” Botton cleverly observes when he finds himself out of sorts on a beach in Barbados).
An incredible Instagram-worthy locale cannot remedy our dissatisfaction: it’s possible to be miserable even amongst the most spectacular surroundings. We can feel despondent in a breathtaking bungalow in Bali; lonely among the striking skyscrapers and bustling streets of Hong Kong; bored in New York City, even though it’s the epitome of endless activity.
Even though Key is among clear blue skies and lush green forests, she still feels saddened by the lack of romance in her life. On a South Asian beach worthy of Conde Nast, Key realizes she’s overestimated how much her outer circumstances can change her inner reality:
“Sadness comes out differently when you’re on holiday. There you are, in a lovely setting, freshness in all you encounter. But then the things you’re sad about intrude. You meet yourself in a place you hoped might displace your sadness. But you were wrong, and now you’re angry too.”
If we are to enjoy our solitary sojourn, we must adjust our expectations. A beach in Rio de Janeiro will not erase our troubles or alleviate our loneliness. We’ll always—to paraphrase Botton—”bring ourselves to the island”:
“The pretty scenes of holidays have to be paralleled by an emotional state that can enjoy them. Getting the timing right is part of it. Setting realistic expectations is another…You can’t take leave of yourself.”
A solo trip might not be a panacea for all our problems, but it can restore our souls if we savor the simple pleasures. As Key writes,
“I need to centre my travelling around all the other pleasures that are there to be taken, all the things that reliably ‘give me back my smile’: my skin turning brown, stopping to notice how pretty the tiles are on an old building, European supermarkets with fruit and vegetables stacked beneath misting apparatus, fancy Californian supermarkets selling fiddlehead ferns and seven types of lemon, meals of vivid coral-pink sea urchin spaghetti, deep-fried baby squid, wilted mountain greens, crisp golden triangles of panelle, pistachio cream doughnuts, the free shot of something sweet and strong when my bill arrives, my body after I’ve showered off the sea, adopting the same seat each time I return to a bar that becomes ‘my bar’ for the duration of the holiday, the pride I have that I can holiday alone.”
Key concludes the chapter with a final recommendation:
“If you want to take pleasure in a holiday alone, you need to speak very directly, identify and pursue your desires, protect your boundaries in ways you might not have to in company, because no one else will advocate for you and there is no other flow to go with. The cost of not doing this is discomfort, displeasure and a feeling of wastefulness. This can mean striding into a restaurant and asking to sit at the table with a good view, having won over the impulse to be subservient to a couple who might see me ‘taking up’ a table intended for two. I’ve found myself feeling guilty for not being active on holiday, not going to see great landmarks or on excursions when I’d rather rest. Finding the sweet spot between gently pushing yourself to do things that could be wonderful and allowing yourself to do absolutely nothing takes work and practice. A holiday should include a break from self-punishment.”
[…] more moving musings from Amy Key, read a salute to the single, how to take a solitary sojourn and the struggles of being single in a world of compulsory […]