Solo, Again
I used to be someone who chose herself. Coming home made me wonder if that was ever really true.
I used to pride myself on solo travelling. I did a lot of it in London, and I was good at it, comfortable in it. But now that I’m back home, it feels like a task. It feels lonely in a way it never did before. I don’t know if that’s me or the atmosphere around me, but something shifted. And that shift made me ask a question I wasn’t prepared for: was I ever really someone who enjoyed their own company, or was I only choosing myself because I was the only choice?
In London, solo dates were just part of my rhythm. Art galleries, museums, restaurants, the beach, I did all of it alone, and I looked forward to it. I wrote, read, took pictures, and sat in parks. I shopped alone. I ate alone. Nobody had to agree on where to go or what to order. It was cheaper, quieter, entirely mine. Everybody made it feel like a big thing. For me, it was just routine.
The first real test came after a job interview. I’d planned to grab fast food, but I wanted to try something different, so I walked into a proper restaurant. A small treat for myself. I asked for a table for one. The host double-checked. Then came the look. When I sat down, I felt the room, or I felt something. People around me, glancing. I still don’t know if they were actually staring or if I was just suddenly, painfully aware of myself. But it was strange. Because I had trained myself out of this exact feeling in London. And here I was again.
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I kept asking myself why it felt so different now. Is it the place? Is it age? Is it the fact that home comes with a gaze that London never had a gaze that already has a story about what a woman alone at a table means? It made me feel sixteen again. Like what people think had started to matter in a way I thought I’d grown out of. The internet has made solo dating a whole aesthetic now, influencers romanticising it, filming it, making it a personality. And I kept thinking, I was doing this before it had a name. Before it needed one. It was never a statement. It was just how I moved through the world. So why was I so self-conscious?
Then I found the more honest answer underneath that one. It wasn’t really about being alone in public. It was about permitting myself joy during instability. Spending money on a sit-down meal while job hunting feels like something I haven’t earned yet. Leaving the house without a productive reason feels indulgent when things aren’t settled. When everything feels provisional, you start rationing yourself your time, your peace, your pleasure. You stop treating yourself like someone whose life is already happening and start waiting for stability before you’re allowed just to exist.
I don’t think that’s the only reason. The gaze is real. The transition is disorienting. Coming home after London is its own kind of loss that nobody really prepares you for. But the guilt was underneath all of it, quietly making everything harder.
And then yesterday happened. It had a bad start, and the café was so busy I had to share a table with a stranger. Not exactly ideal conditions for an introvert who came out specifically to enjoy her own company. But I ate, and I settled, and something shifted. I decided the treat was worth it regardless.
Then I roamed around Bandra. And something came back to me. The nostalgia of familiar streets, the old bookstore, and the long walks I used to take when I was younger. I remembered that I have always loved spending time with myself, not because I had to, not because nobody else was available, but because it was mine. Quiet, unhurried, entirely mine. That didn’t start in London. London just reminded me.
I still don’t know how much of the restaurant moment was real and how much was in my head. I still don’t know who I am when things are unstable and familiar at the same time. But yesterday Bandra answered something London couldn’t, that this was never a habit I picked up. It was always just me.
