once told a colleague that I was going to Amsterdam on a solo trip to wine and dine alone. “Do you not have any friends to go with?” she replied. She was joking, but I think she also meant it. Her comment was tinged with pity. Why would you choose to eat a three-course meal with a good view or order room service in a nice hotel on your own? What’s the point? Wouldn’t you want to share that with someone

A large number of people enjoying eating alone. Photograph: Oscar Wong/Getty Images

It’s been five years since the pandemic began. Many of us were either stuck inside a house full of people with no escape or desperately alone, craving company and conversation.

Life is busy and stressful: what’s wrong with wanting to eat a meal in privacy every now and again?

I don’t always want a big, raucous dining experience. Sometimes I just want to eat slowly and silently while chewing over my thoughts. Tasting the food, reading a book, looking out of a window, thinking, maybe even with a friendly podcast in my ears for company instead (they talk and you don’t need to talk back)

Someone who lives in Tuscany recently told me that solo dining is not as widely accepted there: “People would think you were strange.” Dining in Italy, he added, is all about big groups of people, family, laughter, and sharing food. As much as I love a hearty group meal (I’m not that much of a loner), I’m also a raging introvert, so I couldn’t help but feel defensive that anything other than dining at a big table is labelled “strange”

In New York, I am usually shoved awkwardly at the end of the bar on an uncomfortably high bar stool, offered a snack menu and not treated to a full dining experience.

I am one of these people (I’ve even written an entire novel called Table for One, about a woman rekindling her relationship with herself after a breakup)

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there is also a huge number of people who really enjoy spending time alone at a table too

Solo dining in restaurants in the US has risen by a staggering 64% since 2019, according to OpenTable.

unstable and unpredictable

The picture doesn’t look good: too many people have no one to eat with, they lack community, and are clearly rather isolated and lonely.