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I often hear people say they enjoy people-watching, and their reasoning is almost always the same: because people are weird. Is that people judging, then? Not that I’m one to judge judging, although I don’t see much of a point when it’s not someone we intend to let into our circle. I suppose I find most people quite dull, anyway. I digress.
I had some errands to run today so I headed off to the gym to get a workout in and left looking like a million bucks. I get a kick out of walking in there looking average and then leaving all gussied up. Kind of like Superman changing in a phone booth. I wore a red cotton wrap dress that I’d bought last year to wear on a date with a man who turned out to be a scrote. Don’t you love when we are spared before wasting a first date on them?
My first instinct was to head over to Starbucks for a grilled cheese sandwich but then I remembered NO COFFEE DATES, and I took that to mean that coffee establishments were off-limits as well. So I found a cute little patio café with live music. I kept my cell phone in my purse the entire time. A woman to the right of me was venting to her friend about all of the many annoyances in her life. Her friend didn’t seem to get much of a chance to share in the conversation. She spoke so loudly it was hard not to listen in, but I made it a game to instead focus on the music, the glistening leaves on the trees, and the smell of roses nearby. It was a glorious time.
If you haven’t taken yourself out on a date lately, I highly encourage you to.
As a recovered people pleaser, I honestly don’t know why I enjoyed surrounding myself with people 24/7. My favourite times now are when I'm alone treating myself to self care or something fancy.
But when I first started practicing "solo dates", I loved people watching (nothing wrong with that) but I think personally it fed into my pickme habits. Like my “solo date” consisted of going to a busy cafe to listen to all the gossip from large groups, critique their stories like it's a problem solving exercise or entertainment, or because I wanted the barista to notice me and to flirt with him 😵💫. Like if I was alone I needed to insert other people into my life so I didn’t feel alone or so I could feed into that habit of putting others before me.
Years later, that’s all changed. True solo dates are not about them, it’s about YOU and you should be the focus!
This is every day for me for the last couple decades.
I love this for you. I do take myself out on an expensive date to a high end restaurant once a month. I've travelled business class too. I think my standards are incredibly high because I can afford to treat myself to luxury, so I've set up my life to be alone. I've been incredibly happy since decentering men. There's no point being with a man if he doesn't make you happier than when you were single. That's a high fucking bar because I'm incredibly happy single. It took years of hardwork and self discipline to decentre men. FDS really helped. I didn't adhere to FDS fully when I first joined and alas I learnt some very hard and painful lessons that actually derailed my life for a couple of years. I've worked to adhere to FDS when dealing with men and it's massively benefitted me because that seeped into other areas of my life and I've started having boundaries with friends and family too.
I am a person who goes out alone and I engage in quite a lot of people-watching... because I am bored? Sometimes to analyze behaviours as well. But like what you mentioned, focusing on MYSELF on dates is so refreshing for a change. Suddenly everyone else becomes boring and I actually enjoy myself more. It felt strange because it is something new to me but it felt so good! I am going to do more of this! :)