Eat alone and not suffer

Take a plate from the shelf, sit down at the table and dine alone … Such a thought does not even cross the mind of 32-year-old Christina in those days when she works at home. A single businesswoman, she runs her small business and uses her lunch break to answer emails or make estimates… “I’m sitting at the computer, chewing some sandwich and not noticing what I’m eating. I know this is not a healthy diet. I just don’t have a choice. We have to earn…”

But does she have free evenings, too? “It’s good if you manage to get out with friends in a cafe, in the company I enjoy trying different goodies. And at home, alone … somehow dreary, ”she finally admits.

The process of eating for us means not only satiety and pleasure, it is loaded with various meanings. For example, it may be associated with affection, care, guardianship, communication. “These meanings can go back to our earliest childhood experiences,” explains family therapist Inna Khamitova. – For an infant, nutrition is also contact with the mother. It includes a whole range of sensations: taste, smell, warmth, gentle strokes that give a blissful feeling of merging with the mother. Hence, many of us have an idea of ​​food as a joint process and an acute sense of loneliness when there is no one to go to lunch or dinner with.

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“I feel bad because there is no one to wish a pleasant appetite”

43-year-old Mikhail sadly says: “After the divorce, I don’t understand what I eat: dried fruits, rolls, sausages … I used to cook dinner for the family and, believe me, I licked all my fingers. Now I can barely cook my own pasta.” What is the reason? “Guilty,” he admits. – I used to sometimes get tired of standing at the stove, but now it depresses me that I don’t need to cook, set the table and there’s no one to wish a good appetite … I myself decided to get a divorce, but I miss my family. In the evenings I turn on the TV and eat something in his “society”: just not to think about what I refused … “

Alas, it is not uncommon when, because of guilt, we give up the joys of life and prefer to suffer. Psychoanalyst Catherine Grangeard often hears similar stories from her patients: “After a breakup, it is difficult for women and men to enjoy life. They divorced, became “coming” parents – and as a result found themselves alone, thinking how to dispose of their freedom. They do not dare to use it, for them it is like committing meanness. What especially depresses them? The stereotype that everyone should have lunch together. “Stop repeating to us this sacred rule that you must eat in company! protests the psychoanalyst. “Many suffer because of this attitude, and you need to get rid of it, as the consequences for the psyche can be very serious.” In reality, it is far from always that an idyll reigns at a common table, on the contrary, mutual reproaches often sound or a painful silence hangs, and sometimes everyone is stuck in their smartphones … “The image of a serene family dinner as the personification of togetherness is a vestige of the patriarchal tradition,” Inna Khamitova reflects. – In practice, in some families, only food remains from jointness. There is a big difference between eating together and being together.” Then what do we yearn for?

Pass the tests

• How do you eat?

“I’m enjoying food again”

Shame is another companion of a lonely meal. “Sometimes I have to stay in the office until late at night,” says 33-year-old Arina. – I can’t stand hunger, so these days I have to have dinner in a cafe next to work. It sounds stupid, but I am shy of the public, and especially of the waiters, who see that I always come alone. It’s like I’m branded as a loser who couldn’t find a partner! Yes, that’s right – that’s who I am.”

We don’t think of any reasons for shame: we reproach ourselves for the fact that we don’t have anyone, we don’t have enough friends, children live their own lives … And in the end we don’t even come to the dinner table. We tell ourselves: I’m not hungry, I don’t feel like it, I’m too lazy to do something. Or: “Cooking for yourself? What’s the point of this?!” As a result, one of us becomes an “emotional eater” and seizes anxiety, drowns out the guilt that prevents him from eating alone.

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“When a person eats alone, he once again asks himself a painful question whether he is on the right path, remembers what happened in his life and what he lost,” says nutritionist and psychotherapist Florian Saffer. “It is clear that few people want to feed on thoughts of their failures while eating.”

A year ago, 39-year-old Dmitry was in just such a state. “At that time, too many things hit me: troubles at work, a painful breakup with a girl,” he recalls. “I didn’t understand at all how to deal with it, my self-confidence was undermined, and, as they say, a piece didn’t go down my throat.”

Oddly enough, the Internet, or rather social networks, became his salvation, thanks to which he found a connection between the virtual world and the real world. Having once made a cake for friends, Dmitry posted his photo on Facebook and unexpectedly received a lot of comments and reposts. Thus began his culinary page, which quickly gained popularity. The number of his friends is fast, he began to give lessons “in real life” to someone, he studied with someone himself. “Life is in full swing, we have our own small community, we arrange joint dinners to show each other our “masterpieces”. And I must say that many of us do not have a couple. It is more difficult for family people to get out to such meetings.”

It seems to be a trend. Single eaters around the world are uniting. This happens differently in different cultures. For example, thousands of Koreans who suffer from loneliness pay a small amount to access the site “Mok-bang” (a combination of the Korean words for “dinner” and “broadcast”) to watch how a person at a beautifully laid table devours various dishes with appetite. The point is that the visitor to the site acquires at least such a symbolic, virtual companion. He doesn’t eat alone now!

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And in France, there is a site called “Dine Together”, which allows you to find quite real companions. Users arrange to meet to share lunch or dinner, communicate, help each other, make friends and simply expand their social circle. In the US, you can use the Colunchers app to find interesting business lunch partners nearby¹. There are no such resources on the Russian Internet yet. Then what can we do to change our attitude to food, stop being burdened by lonely dinners?

“This is a unique sensory experience!”

The reason for our sad experiences is not food at all, Inna Khamitova is convinced. She suggests looking at the problem this way: “Food is just that litmus test that makes obvious the feeling of loneliness, abandonment, own non-value. That’s worth working with.” So that being alone does not lead us to self-isolation, there is only one solution – to free ourselves. In particular, through sensory experiences. You can start small, continues Inna Khamitova: “Switch from thinking about loneliness to pleasant sensations, including taste. Allow yourself to enjoy. Play with new tastes or their unusual combinations, with the design of dishes. Find out what we really like. We often say that cooking is creativity, while implying that we are cooking for someone. Why not create for yourself? A small portion is very elegant!

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• What is the use of gourmet food?

Especially since we have a great role model: food critic Franck Pinay-Rabaroust, former editor of the Michelin Guide and now author of Atabula.com, often eats alone. And he loves it: “How many times have we thought how unlucky we were with the company when someone failed to appreciate delicious food? Once we want to enjoy a meal alone, and we get real pleasure. At such moments, with all our cells we feel the texture, aromas, subtle nuances of taste … This is a unique sensory experience!

An experience that will develop in the future. The first restaurant in the world where visitors are offered tables for only one person opened in Amsterdam in 2014.². Breaking the unspoken taboo of visiting cafes and restaurants alone was the goal of its founder, Marina van Goor. The project was so successful that a year later she opened another institution in London.

Being independent of stereotypes and prejudices is another good idea that we can implement in our kitchen.

¹ app.colunchers.com

² eenmaal.com