I feel I need to go somewhere specific in order to sort something out buut I gotta go on my own and feel kinda nervous about it. It's not the travelling as such I have travelled all over on my own before it's, and I know this will sound stupid, the thought of eating out of an evening on my own. I'd feel so self concious. I don't mind eating lunch on my own but somehow eating otu on your own of an evening is a bit sad. Know what I mean?
that ,my dear, is what " take-out" was invented for! LOL
Too true cargillwitch, but I find going out by myself is a bit "liberating". I go to the movies, dinner, and sometimes hike in the local parks by myself... I enjoy it and am not on someone else's time constraints, and that makes it more "freeing". And lets not mention some of the conversations people have around you (guess they don't think you have ears ;) :D).
Take care of yourself now -
Patze
I have traveled for business reasons. It felt a bit out of my comfort zone sitting alone in the restaurant waiting for my dinner. But I also brought some papers with me to review while I waited for my meal.
I think what helped me was realizing everyone else was busy with their meals and/or dinner companions. And it was my nervousness making me think other people would be looking at the lady sitting at her own table.
Now that I think of it, there probably are a lot more people wishing they could have their own table for a little peace and quiet to gather their own thoughts once in awhile. LOL
If you bring a book or otherwise look busy, people will think you're on a business trip. (You don't even have to read it, unless you want to.) Lots of people travel for work and eat alone at restaurants (being on the company's tab), without wanting any company. The trick is to act like you do it all the time.
I kind of enjoy it now, whenever I get to do it. I'll bet there'll be diners at the restaurant who think you look cool and wish they had a lifestyle like that. Give it try!
...and if you still feel like you're nervous - remember there isn't anyone in there you'll EVER see again :) Be a role model by being yourself!!
Bring a book, a magazine, an iPad - and ENJOY THE SOLITUDE!!!!
To be honest I often enjoy my company more than some people I can think of.lol
I have usually shopped by myself and traveled some bymyself and don't seem to find the being alone thing hard to take. I have learned that I must always be aware of my surroundings and keep track of my environment to ensure that I am safe though.
When we don't pay attention we could get ourselves in trouble. I love to read when I eat out and also bring a paper with me. And yes, take out is awesome. There are times I have gotten takeout and gone to a busy park and just eaten in my car.
One thing to remember is that we have to learn to make friends with ourself in order to be comfortable in our own skin. Good luck. HOpe that you can think through things. Irish
I agree with everyone. I was going to say to take a book or a paper, but it's already been suggested. I have done that occasionally in my working years when I had to go out of town for some reason. I will also, like Patze, go to a movie alone if my hubby is away and my daughter doesn't want to come. I would also go on a BUSY trail, nothing backwoods, but that's only being smart.
One of the things I was told is to ask for a room close to the lobby if possible. They will know what you mean, being a female traveling alone. It's comforting to know that the employees are within distance of you calling out for help. Lucy
All my family has passed away and my closest family are 1st cousin who have their own kids, grandkids, etc. So I am basically a fifth wheel with everyone. Most of my friends are married too. It feels odd at first doing some things on you own. You do get used to it It is hard for awhile glancing at the chair across the table and no one sitting in it though. :(
Sometimes it DOES help to just take a day away for yourself. Even if you are just getting a quite hotel room and watch cable TV all day. I took 3 days and went to a small town I had never been to for a mini-vacation. About a 2-3 hr drive only. I walked around downtown, went in the shops, chatted with the locals and got a genuine big hometown chocolate shake. Sorry - little towns make em better. LOL
It is you just sometimes need time where you do not NEED or feel pressured to do anything. You can sit and listen to the birds chirping or smile at the squirrels romping. I really enjoyed my mini-vacation and it didn't cost that much. Gave me lots of relaxation.
Taking a vacation alone is wonderful. Only one you have to please is yourself. As far as eating out, I have no problems with that at all, and have been doing it for a long time. I might be somewhat choosy in terms of the restaurant i.e. no desire to go to a 'romantic, candlelight, fancy/dress-up' type of place!! But other than that, eating alone is great and nobody knows your story and ...NOBODY CARES!!
Just have fun and relax on your 'adventure.' And don't ruin one second of it by feeling self-conscious!!
Jodie ;)
Thanks for the responses, quite a fe of you made me smile. I guess you're right people don't really notice other people. It seems like such a small thing to worry about but I have been self conious most of my life and don't think I am about to stop any time soon! Much as I would want to. It's funny I totally don't mind eating lunch by myself or going to the movies by myself but eating out of an evening scares me. WHY???!!! I think the thing I would need to consider more than anything is how far the place is from the B&B I'd be staying at so I won't have to walk far to get back to it. Also where the b&b is I think is important.
I live in the Midwest, Eastern Iowa. Pretty much if you want to talk to someone , you just strikeup a conversation. Nobody looks at you like you are nuts or from another planet. LOL (they did in Calif when I visited. :P)
The one thing about eating out in the evening is too be sure and eat early---as before the sun sets if at all possible. This is especially true if you are in an area that you would consider more high risk for the unexpected.
I like to visit with others also and being from rural MN people are more apt to talk to each other. However, I am more careful about who I talk to and what I say than I used to be. I think that in this day and age being careful should be second nature. I even bought some Mace to carry when I go to the metro areas. Have a good time and relax. There is no reason to feel self conscious as people do not pay much attention to each other in this day and age. Irish
I see you are staying or have stayed at a bed and breakfast. I was going to suggest that because I have been looking online for B&B's for us. I think you would feel safer and less alone in that setting. Have a good time. I used to work with a single young lady with no kids and she went away by herself to bed and breakfasts all the time. Lucy
I must say, where I'm thinking of going it's just a seaside town, but then is anywhere safe these days? But yes thought a b&b would be better, less impersonal than a hotel.
As long as you keep your wits about you, you should be okay WildThing. And I love B&Bs, the owners can get quite creative with their rooms and they also know all the great places to see locally.
Good luck and have fun!!!
Patze
Hi,
All of the above suggestions are great. I say to go for it and have a good time.
Make sure that someone ( family, friends, etc.) know where you are.
Enjoy yourself!
Duchess
I have to travel lots for my job, usually to larger cities where I've never been before.
I always make friends with the employees at the hotel as soon as possible. You'd be surprised how little it takes to endear yourself to strangers!
First, I give a memorable tip -- like 20 bucks -- to the person who parks my car in the hotel garage. Then when I check in I try to be overly friendly and very complimentary.
I give a good tip to the porter who carries my stuff to my room -- $2 per item rather than the usual $1 per item.
I usually have three or four $10 WalMart gift cards with me. After I check in and get my stuff all hung up I come back down to the desk and give one to the person who checked me in. I also give one to the night person after shift change, and another to the person at the desk in the morning. I leave a gift card or a couple of dollars on my pillow for the maid.
I am now very well-known at this hotel, even though I've only been there a couple of hours! I am treated like royalty the whole time I'm there.
Hope this helps!
Hi!
I travel all the time alone. I love it... I get to do what I want... eat where I want, etc. I even travel international often by myself. I have been to the Republic of Georgia, Germany, Spain, Ukraine - alone. It is not a bad thing. Just be smart, stay in a good area, make friends with the front desk personnel, take a book with you while eating (Love my Kindle) or start up conversation - most people are happy to talk to you! I also have stayed at B&B and while I like them, they are not always available at short notice. Go! Enjoy! It is great to have time to and for yourself! Concierge's can be a great help too! Good luck and have fun!
Thanks again ladies for the tips, most appreciated. Well, I have emailed a couple of b&bs but believe it or not they are being funny with me when I tell them I'm on my own. I have no idea why. I emailed one and said 'do you cater for vegans?'...that's all I said and they said 'sorry all our rooms are double rooms' then I emailed another and said 'do you cater for vegans?' and they were all like 'oh yes we'll do that for you no problem' then emailed them back and said 'do you charge a single supplement?'...radio silence lol. I tried making a joke with one of them like 'do you think single vegan women over a certain age have scales'? they just didn't get it I guess. No bloody sense of humour at all. Geez. I'm going to have to camp out on the beach at this rate. :o
I have travelled by myself and I go to the movies and out to eat by myself. I like people watching so you have more time to that rather than having to think of something to say to someone else. Ask for a more private table at dinnertime if you feel self concious. I love having a room to myself with a large bed that I can spread out in and I can watch what I want to watch on the TV. I live by myself anyway so I am used to not having someone to talk to. I do also take a book or magazine but don't usually end up reading them
Well I emailed a couple more b&bs now in the hope that they won't run a mile when I tell them I'm travelling alone so fingers crossed. Want to stay as close to town as possible too so I only have a short walk from wherever I am to the b&b.
Keeping the fingers crossed that you find a really good B&B!
Patze
Thanks Patze, am still looking, finding they are expensive though as I'm on my own. If I was with someone else it'd be half the price. Thinking of going self catering but that might also turn out expensive. It does worry me a bit though trying to find somewhere to eat being vegan.
I understand what you mean, and I've had dinner with some "ah, interesting folks" when I've dined solo, so I don't do that much anymore. A good book or a magazine tends to discourage folks wanting to join you (especially in restaurants that aren't crowded).
Patze
I have to admit, I dined out alone one night in a different town and the place was packed and I had a table to myself so some ladies asked if they could join me but we hit it off really well and found we had lots in common so that was nice. However that is a very friendly town this one I am not so sure of this one even hough it is lovely to look at and has four beaches. Am seriously thinking of going self catering now. I think it might even work out cheaper than a b&b. I have emailed 6 b&bs and all of them have either ignored me, been rude, weird or quoted me double rates for the night just because I am on my own. It is bizarre. Maybe I am not meant to stay at a b&b. If I go self catering I won't have to worry about any of that I'll just pay for the rent of the place then buy my own food, food I know I can eat so as not to worry about eating out alone or eating in a resteraunt that doesn't cater for vegans.
Yes. But I was quite the adventurer when younger. I haven't traveled much in the last few years and I'm all set to get into it again. I'm even setting up for a possible career traveling as a sales distributor which would obviously be less glamorous than traveling for fun, but I turned into such a little hobbit for a while I want to break out. But I do go to movies and dinner alone. I'm much more likely to rent or order take out or delivery. But if I'd been waiting for the perfect person to go do something with to go do something with I'd still be sitting in my home town pining. Of course, these days I have a hairy cheat sheet for travel. I take a service dog with me everywhere. But that's only because it became so hard to go on my own and because I do need help to operate independently. So even when I'm alone I'm never really alone anymore. Consider this though, if scaredy cat me can manage to walk out my front door, I know other people can because there is nothing brave or special about me. I'm just too stubborn to stay home. GG
I was a big adventurer when younger as well I live in the UK and travelled all over the Western part of the US on my own when I was 23. My family freaked out when I went but I was determined to do it and loved every minute. Apart from San francisco dind't like it there as so many odd people roaming the streets. Sorry if anyone is from San Fransisco. And sorry I can't spell it. That would be cool if you could set up a career as a sales distributer. Very brave of you having so many heath issues good on ya. Nice to meet you by the way and welcome to the forum!
Thanks! I may regret it if I have a slew of bad days on the road but you never know until you try.
Wild Thing -or anyone else having problems with vegan and others understanding what they want.
I have been a vegetarian (95%) since I was about 8 or 9 years old. There was no such thing as being a vegetarian then. Only that I didn't want to eat meat. Well, lo and behold around the 1960-70's being a vegetarian was becoming a political statement. Not to me it isn't, but others seem to think they are elite with this tag. I do not even tell people because I am not up to the political discussion.
I don't care what others eat and I don't want others caring about what I eat. Well, just a decade or so ago, vegan began becoming the thing to be. Wonderful. I have always eaten eggs and some milk products, still do and always will.
Got away from my point. I really think many people do not know what VEGAN means. I believe vegetarian would get you closer to what you are asking for---vegan. It may be a lot of trouble to do this. However, I'll bet being a vegan isn't easy. I have a hard time eating out, although I can usually do with a salad and spaghetti with marianara sauce. My diet is not religious, so I really would eat what I wanted. I understand just how tough it must be to find vegan food.
Do vegans have a list of foods they do eat and could fax to a b&b? I'm just wondering because that would make it easier for them at the b&b to answer yes or no and not be rude etc. Happy eating everyone, no matter what. Hope it's good. Lucy
Dear Lucy and Wild Thing--
I hear ya about being a natural vegetarian. My parents were always pushing me to eat one more bite of hamburger as a little one. So I'd take a bite of the bun and get into more trouble for being a smarty pants. Of course, being a total vegetarian or vegan deep in the Southern United States is a challenge still because even the vegetables have meat in them. I don't think it was a moral or political choice for me because I'd never met anyone who talked about that kind of thing and contrary to what most people complained about I wasn't just a picky eater either. I just didn't like meat. I suppose years and years of being badgered about it eventually wore me down until I'm not an adult vegetarian but there are still few meats I like. I really think most of them are just disgusting. Now I have jaunts of vegetarianism and I wish I had more desire to stick up for my likes and dislikes, but frankly, it's too complicated to care about most of the time. And I really dislike most of the trendy vegetarian and vegan choices that have become available as it has become more popular to be meat-free, and since I moved to a place that has a higher percentage of veg-heads. Many of the restaurants on my street cater to cruelty-free dieters, but Jeez are they ever overpriced and unpalatable. You don't have to be a picky eater to find gluten-free dairy-free pizza at $30 a pie unworthy of the effort required to eat it. I have to say in regards to the moral dilemma is I find it kind of unfair that no one cries for a head of lettuce when they eat a salad. And I'm not sure it is kinder to let chickens romp around free-range and have fun if I'm just going to kill and eat them later. The logic behind that is more bothersome to me than anything else. However, I try to eat healthy and I try to not eat anything that can live under the seat of my car for a year without looking worse for wear. As for traveling food, I really dislike paying too much for food when I just want to eat something to keep from getting a headache because I forgot to and I'm not sitting down to some sort of culinary experience so I usually stop at a grocery store and buy something simple to make sandwiches etc in the hotel room rather than end up paying too much to eat something fast and easy that I won't like. PB&J can sit at room temperature even if there isn't one of those mini-fridges. And most chain hotels have those in the room these days standard. I make a much better sandwich for pennies on the dollar than fast food places do. In cold weather, I nuke myself a cup of soup. If the room doesn't come with a microwave, there's almost always one in the lobby. Best of all, I can eat my econo-meal in the room in front of the tv in my pjs and if I spill it in bed... someone else does the sheets for me. :) GG
LOL ashe woman you do make me laugh you have a great sense of humour! I know what you mean even in today's day and age veganism and vegetarianism isn't really catered for. I live near to a capital city and even when I went there once into a sandwhich bar and asked for a vegan sandwhich they looked at me like I had two heads. I find only small hippy dippy new agey towns cater for vegans properly now or even have a clue what a vegan is. Some big, hugely expensive resteraunts don't even cater for vegans. They might have one vegetarian thing on the menu and that's it, and that costs like an arm and a leg. I think the only sensible thing for me or any vegan really is to rent a place when I go away that way I can just buy my own food and eat what I know I can eat. It just makes me too darn nervous to think about going to restaurant on my own, paying through the nose for a meal that is supposedly vegan but actually isn't coz they haven't' a clue what 'vegan' means.
Eyeamdry: I thought it would be sensible of me to email the b&bs and give them a link to the Vegan Society website in case they were stuck on what to feed me. They do a section on the website especially dedicated to caterers. That was all fine then I made a joke about how most b&bs think women who travel alone have scales under their skin and how nice it was that they were being friendly towards me and I guess theu didn't ge the joke so then I got radio silence, so yeah, pretty much written of the idea if a b&b now. They can stuff it. Works out cheaper self catering anyway even if you do have to think about washing the dishes, washing clothes, cleaning and tidying ect. I like cleaning nayway. Got OCD.
WildThing and to the rest of you too.....
I'm so jealous that you can even go anywhere on a vacation or out of town on your own. I wish i could do that. I have to admit, for me, driving to my Neuro into the city of Chicago was frightening, but I'm getting better at it. I guess as least I'm attempting to make it there alone. I want the joy and freedom of going away by myself. I'm going to have to start small....locally, and see how far away I can get. :)
My very dear friend travels alone all the time. I envy her. :)
Believe me Sonya there's nothing to envy. I have been virtually housebound for two or more years due to extremely severe OCD. It almost killed me. I'm lucky to be here at all. Haven't been anywhere in that time apart fromm docotrs appointments and been too ill and exhausted to cope with any normal day to day task, been in a right mess, you just wouldn't believe the mess I have been and am still in but I feel I need to do this and feel it's time. Not sure hw I'll cope when I'm there but I'll just have to I guess.
Awww....ya know, the more I read peoples posts here, the more I see how connected we all are in one way or the other. I can imagine how you feel because for five years I couldn't leave my own house, I had severe Agoraphobia. Back then, we didn't have insurance, and even if we did, I don't think I could have handled going to the doctor. It was so brutal...and I had a husband at that time that didn't 'get it' and didn't want to get it either. Ugh....when I think back to those days, it's a miracle that I'm even here. Life was horrific at best. I was so afraid to go to sleep that I'd pray that God would just take me away. I'll never forget it...I clutched a bible close to my chest, and finally (I don't know how it happened, maybe sheer exhaustion finally came), but I'd finally fall asleep.
I want so bad to be independent....and am slowly getting there. However, I still can't drive over a tall bridge. (it's sorta funny, but I just can't do it). I'd much rather give a lecture to a room of 200 people than be put through the torture of a bridge. Geez....I sound silly, I'm sure.
Oh well....keep hangin' in there. I know those words really don't mean much from a stranger, but at least you are trying. And that itself is huge, if you ask me.
A note on this subject. We went out to dinner tonight, along with our adult daughter. I had a time going over the menu as they didn't care about vegans or vegetarians. I had something I've eaten before which was a delicious salad with walnuts and a bunch of other things and I said to leave out the chicken. I do get sick of salads, although I eat enough other "bad" foods. LIke bread and sweets, oh and I love and crave string cheese! I was out and had to buy 2 12 packages tonight. Did enjoy our supper. Lucy
Kind words do mean a lot, even from a stranger Sonya. You sound like a brave lady to have fought that horrible illness or whatever you want to call it Maybe they are not illnesses at all but something else. I know my OCD was reaction to repressed memories of abuse. My life was a living heck too, only the medication has brought me out of it so now I really feel like I need a break. Looked in the mirror yesterday and saw such a sad, sorry stte of affairs I felt I could pack ad go away tomorrow if I could. Can't, as I haven't booked a place to stay yet and need new clothes and a new suitcase lol.
Eyeamdry: I know what you mean about unhealthy diets. I eat rubbish food too. Got into the habit with having OCD and thinking fresh food is contaminated. If ever I do go out for lunch I do try to eat a salad as I wouldn't do normally. Still, eating something is better than eating nothing at all