I had the most magical Sunday.
I had a lot of work piled up for the weekend, but this time I thought, instead of worrying about my startup (and still getting very little done, as is true to all Sundays), how about I just spend this time with myself.
So as I had mentioned in my recent tweet, entrepreneurs tend to forget to spend some time with themselves. Amidst taking care of their company, its employees, the co-founders, and the investors, they stop taking care of themselves. I have seen this happen with so many startups and their founders around me.
So I woke up at 9 and did what I always, always wanted to do. Redecorate my new apartment.
I just moved in to a new place, its a very nice 1BHK in a nice locality of Bangalore. Despite all the niceness, it didn’t feel mine. Had no personality.
At 11am, I went out and bought my supplies :
In case its not clear, this picture contains all kinds of crap from the stationery realm. I’m talking ribbons, glitter tapes, scotch tapes, washi tapes, different coloured paper, paintbrushes, thumb tacks, multi coloured safety pins, colourful fuzzy pipe cleaners, bottles of glitter, pom pom tassels, embroidery threads and needles, lots of glue, gold and silver wires, and many more items. Some already knew what purpose they would serve in my house redecoration project, others just wandered aimlessly into my shopping bag. The latter was mainly due to my lack of self control.
I’m not kidding, but art/craft supplies turn me on. I had the most wonderful time. I shopped for a long time, went from isle to isle, blew up a lot of money.
I won’t go into the details of what all I made / did in the next 9 hours, but here are some photographs :
I did up 2 walls, and one doorway. Tomorrow I plan to do the other doorway with small cutouts of stars and planets in blue and purple.
The dinner incident
At 9pm I headed out for dinner. I would have normally just ordered in, because I was alone, but this time I felt like ending the day perfectly with some good food and drinks. So I dressed up fancy, put on my fancy shoes, and went to a fancy pub.
Now since I am doing this for the first time, and I’m not sure if others have encountered this a lot, but people stare. They stared at me as I entered, even the wait staff. I was given a place by the bar, since I asked for a ‘table for one, please’, and as I hopped onto the too-high-for-me barstool, I noticed how much the other groups were staring at me.
This could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe they thought I was some kind of a loner, who has nobody to have dinner with on a weekend night. Or perhaps they thought I had a fight with my boyfriend and I’m here to blow some steam off by myself. After a while, when I was done ordering my generous quantities of food and drinks, I saw their looks of concern turn into sympathy. Maybe I got stood up because my date did not show up? Maybe I’m expecting my angry boyfriend to come to this pub and reconcile our fight?
I found it almost funny that me coming to a pub alone was seen as a matter worthy of notice. What came naturally to me, was not natural to others.
You should go out alone not because of a reason. You do not need something to have happened to justify why you are sitting there alone. You should go out alone because you want to. I did so today, because I was perfectly happy with the efforts I had made redecorating my bedroom, and wanted to enjoy a breezy night eating good food at a rooftop pub. I came alone because I was so comfortable in my own skin, I did not want another human to tarnish my day’s memories and experiences. I stopped noticing them after a while, while they stopped noticing me too.
I went home to my now-lovely apartment at around 11pm. Its 11.47pm now, and I couldn’t be happier. I spent 24 hours not speaking to another soul, and it felt so, so good. I am not used to this, and its not like I chose to be exiled for this day — it just happened by chance and I surprised myself by enjoying it so much.
Moral of the story
Here’s the thing. I may enjoy having a big group of friends to go out with all the time (I do enjoy it), but sometimes spending money on yourself and pampering yourself is important. I had a full day of not having anyone tell me what to do, not anyone giving me their opinion on my work, not anyone sharing my food or drink (I hate that), not anyone to split the bill with (I did end up paying a lot but it was worth it).
If you haven’t ever spent a whole day alone — and I’m not talking about lazying around in the house, because god knows I’m so guilty of that! — then go ahead and do what I did. Start by doing what you really love to do, things you hadn’t been getting a chance of doing lately, and end the day with eating whatever pleases you.
If I earn enough to spend on myself at a fancy place once a week, then I should be more comfortable in doing so. After tonight, I realised that the whole deal with calling up all your friends and coordinating and the endless infinite loops on your WhatsApp group regarding ‘make a plan to meet’, is so tiring.
Take yourself out on a date. Guess what, you will never cancel on you, you will look just as perfect as you had imagined, and you’ll be the best you ever got.
