Table for One, Please!

Did you know that psychological experts have said that being able to go to a movie alone is an indicator of extreme confidence?  I feel like dining alone follows this same thread.

Being newer to the traveling sales representative scene, facing the prospect of time alone on the road is a new experience for me.  When the workday is through and the appointments have a neat little check next to them, all you have left is an evening of solitude.  I hope every past sales manager I've ever had is reading this.  Why even limit it to that?  I think every person who has ever known me well would all tell you the same thing.  Silence makes me uncomfortable.  I start to throw random phrases out in the air just for the sake of breaking the quiet.  Enter the phrase, "Table for one, please."  It's only logical that eating alone would cause the sweat to bead upon my brow.

I know I'm not the first traveler to experience the novelty of dining à l'une.  But I feel confident that many business travelers have had these thoughts. Sure, I could go grab a sandwich and eat in my hotel, but that's a lonely prospect as well.  Instead, I go through the inner conflict of wanting to get out and enjoy a delicious restaurant while wondering if everyone in the restaurant is looking at me thinking, "Oh that poor, sad, lonely woman eating all by herself."  That may be a bit dramatic, but I can own the fact that I am a bit neurotic (and maybe a teensy bit dramatic too).

A little liquid courage AKA The Summer Peach Mojito from Food Dance in Kalamazoo, Michigan...maybe if I am a little buzzed, no one will notice that I am dining all by my lonesome