By Mark Mason

Eating out is such a pleasure—the food， the wine， the luxury of having it all brought to you by someone else—that its a shame to spoil the experience by sharing it with other people.

OK， Im not the curmudgeon1 that might make me sound： I do like visiting restaurants with friends. But dining out alone has its own very special attractions. For a start you can concentrate on the food. Theres nothing worse than having to invent and deliver an opinion on school league tables or Sanchezs move to Manchester United， plus listen to everyone elses opinions on same， when all you really want to do is tuck into your lasagne， relishing each mouthful along the way.2 The extreme version of this problem is the “working lunch.” All you can concentrate on is your desperate attempt to say the right thing in order to get the gig3/avoid losing the gig/create the right impression generally. The chicken teriyaki4 that had your mouth watering as soon as you saw it on the menu？ Youve got zero attention left for that.

出去吃飯是人生一大美事，而如果你是獨(dú)自一人，那更是一種美妙的體驗(yàn)。不用等著輪流發(fā)言，眼睜睜地看著盤子里的肉冷掉；你甚至可以一邊大快朵頤，一邊悠閑地翻翻雜志，抑或觀察觀察周圍的人。商界大亨古爾本基安說得好：參加飯局最好只有兩個人，那就是你自己和一個棒棒的餐廳領(lǐng)班！

A second great thing about eating out alone is the chance to combine food with one of lifes other true pleasures： reading. You have to plan this carefully： Indian or Chinese restaurants are best—you need food you can eat with just one hand， leaving the other free to hold your reading material. For the same reason magazines are better than books， unless its a particularly slim paperback.5

But perhaps the biggest attraction of a table for one is the opportunity it gives for people-watching. Restaurants and the different reasons for visiting them—first date， business meeting， night out with friends—produce human behaviour of astonishing richness and variety. Will the nervous 20-something persuade the girl hes with to go back to his place after the coffee？ Will the man pitching6 his business idea get any joy out of his possible investor？ Will the married couple think of anything to say to each other before their main courses arrive？

This “human zoo”element of eating out alone is one of the reasons Id hate to be famous： Everyone would be watching you， so you wouldnt be able to watch them. The snooker7 player Steve Davis says this was one of the strangest consequences of becoming well-known： He got very self-conscious about his eating in public， almost to the level of doubting whether he was “doing it right.”

A close relative of the solitary8 meal is the solitary drink in a pub. Over the years several female friends have told me how much they envy me this pleasure—a woman drinking on her own is going to get hassled9 all the time. Although recently I met a woman who said she didnt let that stop her. I asked how she dealt with blokes10 trying to chat her up. “I just tell them to get lost11.”

Eating alone is something I tend to do at run-ofthe-mill places： It takes a certain style to ask for a table for one at a posh restaurant，12 a style I dont possess. The exception is breakfast—thats less of an occasion， quicker and more informal.

So next time youre considering your eating out options， remember the advice of the business magnate13 Nubar Gulbenkian： “The best number for a dinner party is two—myself and a damn good head waiter.”

1. curmudgeon： 脾氣壞的人。

2. 沒有什么比這更糟糕了：你必須對學(xué)校排名表或是桑切斯加入曼聯(lián)這些事構(gòu)思并發(fā)表意見，然后聽每個人都對此發(fā)表一番言論，但此時其實(shí)你真正想做的只有狂吃意面，在整個過程中享受每一口的好滋味。league table： 比賽成績對照表，名次表；Sanchez： 桑切斯，智利足球運(yùn)動員，現(xiàn)效力于曼徹斯特聯(lián)足球俱樂部（Manchester United）；tuck into： 津津有味地吃，狼吞虎咽地吃；lasagne：（意大利）鹵汁寬面；relish： 享受，從……中得到樂趣。

3. gig： 工作，職業(yè)。

4. chicken teriyaki： 照燒雞肉。

5. slim： 薄的；paperback： 簡裝書，平裝書。

6. pitch： 竭力推銷。

7. snooker： 斯諾克臺球。

8. solitary： 單獨(dú)的，獨(dú)自的。

9. hassle： 打擾，使煩惱。

10. bloke： 人，家伙。

11. get lost： 滾開，別來煩我。

12. run-of-the-mill： 普通的，一般的；style： 氣派，風(fēng)度；posh： 豪華的，高檔的。

13. magnate： 巨頭，大亨。