A Table for One

Tonight I took myself to dinner.

Not takeout. Not delivery eaten over a case brief. A restaurant. A table for one.

The hostess gave me the look. You know the one. Pity wearing a customer-service smile.

I almost left.

Then I remembered I have survived worse things than being seen alone.

So I stayed.

I ordered the expensive glass of wine. I ate dessert before I finished dinner. I read forty pages of a book nobody assigned me.

And somewhere between the second bite of chocolate cake and the woman at the next table asking what I was reading, I realized something.

Being alone and being lonely are not the same thing.

I'm still learning the difference.

— S.