You would think that being over 50 years old, I would have gone to the movies alone long before now, but no, I hadn’t. I always had this feeling that going alone said something about me, maybe that I was not good enough to have a date, undatable, unlovable?
Okay, so maybe that’s a little dramatic.
I only recently started to feel comfortable going to a restaurant alone for dinner. When I do, I find myself looking around at everyone else, especially others there alone. I usually sit at the bar, seems appropriate for someone alone, hate to take up an entire table just for me, it just makes it that much more obvious that I’m alone.
Actually, the likelihood is that no one else there even notices me, alone or otherwise.
I check out the people also sitting at the bar, some alone, some with others. Some are there with co-workers, some there on business, some celebrating with a friend. I can sit and try to make up entire stories about the people sitting there, why they are alone, what they are doing there, what is the relationship between them and those they are with. Must be the writer in me.
Sitting alone in the theater, I was a little self-conscious when I would laugh aloud, of course only at the funny parts.
I guess I can cross another thing off my list of things that I will do as I have begun my new life at 50. I have gone from being a girlfriend to a wife then a girlfriend and now I am learning to be just a single woman.
A single woman who enjoys dinner and a movie, sometimes alone.
Julie, congratulations on discovering the little-known pleasures of going "cinema solo."
ReplyDeleteI discovered cinema-solo while I was traveling as associate publisher of a trade magazine. Late afternoon meetings can often dump you into rush-hour traffic. Bad enough at home, but double-bummer in a strange city. I would find a 5:00 show and settle in with a box of popcorn. By 7pm I was refreshed, ready to grab dinner and head back to my hotel AFTER the rush hour.
I've since found gals who shop, sneak a sandwich into a noon movie, then shop some more. See what you want. Sit where you want, drape your legs over the next seat. What's not to like?
Ginger B.
http://coppertopcollins.blogspot.com
www.gingerbcollins.com
You are very brave. I have yet to go to the movies alone, so congratulations! (I'll be 50 in April, so I guess I still have time!) Probably for many of us it's an ongoing process over a lifetime to overcome the so-called limitations imposed on us by upbringing and society. But step by step, it can be done.
ReplyDeleteI discovered your blog from the blogging group at shewrites, and I had to respond to your experience of going solo. I met my husband when I was 19 and lost him when I was 50. I'd never done anything alone! It was hard at first. I remember the first movie, the first restaurant, first bike trip, first time I sat at a bar. Now I've been single for twenty years, and I can't say it isn't sometimes lonely, but it's good for the writing, and I am surrounded by friends, children and stepchildren. It's a good life, even solo. My booik tells the story: The Crack between the Worlds: a dancer's memoir of loss, faith and family.
ReplyDeleteI've never been to a movie alone, either! Perhaps I need to put that on my to-do list for the next decade!
ReplyDelete