I (22f) have recently looked around and realized all of my friends have basically moved away. Im very happy for them and I still have two friends in my area; I am in a long distance relationship, and when I’m not traveling to see my SO, usually we’ll get together.
The past few weeks with the holidays and traveling, anytime I’ve not had plans I’ve been happy to just relax at home. It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve really done anything on a Friday/Saturday night and I want to go out and do something this weekend. Both of my friends in my area are busy, my SO has plans with their friends and I don’t really want to take another road trip to a friend out of state. I decided I would take myself out on Saturday night, go to dinner, see a play and maybe have a drink after. I was really excited about this the past couple days but now tomorrow is Thursday and I’m starting to feel nervous.
Does anyone have any tips or advice for going to a restaurant alone, or generally doing something at night by yourself? Im not worried about people looking at me I guess, I just feel nervous about eating alone/taking a cab alone and I dont want to just be on my phone the entire time, I really want to enjoy the evening. I know this might come across as silly, but when I was in college I had friends around me the entire time so I’m just not sure how it will go.
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This helped me: I used this while single/traveling alone/generally being an anxious person: start by bringing an item of comfort besides your phone. It can be a notepad, a book, whatever.
I end up never using these comfort items, but they allow me to “look busy” if I start feeling anxious while alone. If I am lucky, I do use my “comfort items” and end up giving them more attention that I ever could otherwise.
Good luck! When you master the art of being alone, I swear the world feels like it opens up. The solotravel subreddit might also be a great thing to check out. Lots of posts about this exact/other similar challenges.