Things you notice when you eat alone

When you walk in, the cashier smiles and asks you how many.

When you say one, he raises his eyebrows and panics. What the fuck, he says.

His mouth says, Please, sit wherever you want. He speaks loudly and gestures grandly to the mediocre decor.

He means for you to sit on this side of the room, where people won’t notice you.

You choose the obvious couple table next to the window. There’s a nice view.

You ring the bell five times and nobody comes to your table so you raise your hand.

You knew what you were going to order before you walked in. But because you shared it the last time you had it, you forgot that it’s a dish meant for two.

When you tell your waitress your order, her eyes narrow and then relax. A two second frown. Okay, she says.

You watch other people eat.

There is a couple sitting diagonally from you. The man looks at you and smirks. You stare back and he looks away.

The couple in front of you is struggling through their conversation and their food. They’re American. The man facing you repeats his sentence three times.

The first bite is amazing. The staff are taking turns to watch you, so you feel the need to make it look amazing.

You pull the whole two-person serving dish in towards yourself. You stab the mound and swirl and pick up the sauce with the spoon. You cram it into your mouth.

It’s crab and oyster and a runny egg with noodles. Everything you love and everything he tolerated for you.

When you shared it, he’d said it was good. Even though he didn’t like seafood.

You plow through a couple more bites but the butter and the cream is slowly clogging your throat.

This is why people drink when they eat alone, you think.

You’ve barely gotten through a quarter of your plate.

Your stomach is queasy and you’ve been needing to pee since before you got here. But you didn’t want to leave your stuff alone so now you’re sitting with an angry bladder and a nauseous stomach.

You raise your hand again.

Honestly, you could have left everything to throw away like that couple in front of you.

Instead you raise your hand.

“포장 해 주세요.”

Honestly, you don’t know if you can stomach the rest. But you pack it all away with that crazy optimism you have.

You’ll carry it with you.