One of the main topics on my ‘must blog about’ list for Because I Can has been the concept of drinking alone. Not just sitting on my sofa watching TV with a nice chilled Prosecco or Picpoul De Pinet in the fridge – actual Going Out To A Bar On My Own.
I’ve been doing it for around four years now, on and off, so it’s become part of normal life for me, but it still amazes some people when I mention it and I find myself explaining what I do, how I do it, and reliving all those moments in bars that happened on my way to normalising this activity for myself.
It all began back in the Camino bar near King’s Cross. I’d already separated from my husband and was hitting the after-work social scene quite hard. On the odd occasion, all of my friends were busy doing other things and I became frustrated that my social life depended on other people being available. Why did it have to be like that, I thought? If I want to go out, I should be able to go out, just as guys do, with a newspaper and a pint at the end of the bar. But as we all know, if a woman does that, an assumption is made that she is touting for business, and I don’t mean hoping a recruitment consultant will buy her a drink.
I became determined to try it out so one night I took a copy of the Evening Standard to Camino – a very busy after-work bar filled with ‘young professionals’. I was maybe pushing the age range up a bit just by walking in. I went to the bar, ordered a glass of wine, took a perch on a bar stool and studied my newspaper.
Nothing happened. No one stared, no one propositioned me, no one cared.
So I did it again. I found that sitting on a bar stool right next to the bar offered me the most ‘invisibility’. People assumed I was just waiting for someone, or at least just there temporarily. I took work with me, or read a book, and barely looked up at the people around me – it was just so easy to blend in. I enjoyed the look on guys’ faces as they saw me finish my drink and leave the bar. “Oh my god, she was actually on her own, not waiting for someone!” Ha.
Every now and again someone would notice me. Usually a woman. In a pub in Belsize Park one stood next to me at the bar and asked, “Are you here, alone?” Yes, I replied. She told me how much she admired me for it and promptly ordered me a glass of wine. I watched her go back to sit with her partner and they both looked at me admiringly as I grinned back. I loved it.
I haven’t always been looked at admiringly by women for doing this. I noticed that if I went to bars alone on holiday, as I did in Thailand on my first solo jaunt, I’d see a (usually British) couple in a corner, the woman glowering at me and the man looking impressed. I don’t know why these women felt annoyed by me being on my own but I have experienced it a few times.
Now it’s just part of my normal routine to take myself off to a pub now and again. After a hard day of meetings, I like nothing better than grabbing a copy of Grazia and ordering myself a glass of wine in my local pub. The bar staff know me and every now and again someone I know joins me. If they don’t, no biggie. I don’t need a wing person. I know lots of people who can’t go anywhere without one – going running, to a bar, shopping, on holiday – all of these things I do on my own. It’s uniquely liberating. Why wait for someone else to validate your activities when you can own them yourself?
Whilst going to a bar alone might shock some people, what about going to a club? I’ve done it, lots of times. In a busy environment like a club, no one knows you’re on your own. You may have become separated from your friends, you may have just arrived and are looking for them. No one notices. It’s easy to slip in, grab a drink, go for a dance and slip out again. Oh the joy.
I started doing it because my friends tended to end nights out earlier than I wanted to end them. We’d go out for a drink or a meal, and I’d be back in my flat at 9.30pm/10pm itching to carry the night on. I got so frustrated by it one night that I just thought, ‘fck it’ – I’m doing it. What would a guy do? He’d just go out and see who was there. So I did. About half the time I’ve done it, I’ve bumped into people I know. When I haven’t, I’ve survived it. Loved it, even. People are so caught up in their own bubbles that no one notices me: at the bar, on the dance floor, moving between rooms. I’m just a woman in a club, albeit older than the average. Do I care about that? No. And seemingly no one else does.
I haven’t done my club routine in a while because once I’d done it a few times I’d largely got it out of my system. It’s no longer a case of me feeling like I’m missing out on something when the evening ends ‘early’, it’s more that I know what’s out there should I want to take it further, and I can if I want to. The night is never over if I don’t want it to be and it’s not forbidden territory – it’s there for the taking if I want it.