Table for One

Moving to LA is going to be lonely. I know exactly 5 people there.  I won't have my own apartment right away.  I won't have the cat to lay on my chest in the evening. I won't be able to call someone and say "Hey! Come over" or "Let's grab brunch on Sunday." I am looking forward to the time alone on the road. I am prepared to pull over at least once, if not more, so that I can have a little crying breakdown. But I am thinking of the driving time as me time. This is me all by myself. This is my time to figure out what that means. I am planning on plastering my dashboard with photographs so I can see all my loves even as I drive away. And if I can manage it, to visit some family I don't see very often along the way. This will break up my alone time a bit. But once I am in LA I am going to be alone, homeless and broke. I am having ambivalent feelings about being so alone.

I got a table for one for dinner this week. I haven't done that in many years. I can handle movies by myself. I actually rather enjoy it. But there is the movie to distract you and get lost in. I have yet in my life to go to a bar by myself. I feel like that is ok when you are a boy but as a girl I feel like it throws up invitations to creepy people to talk to you or for awkward guys to hit on you. There are too many question marks surrounding a girl sitting by herself in a bar.  Dinner is sort of different. You aren't obligated to talk to anyone. You have your own table. I usually read or write while I am waiting for my food. You can't really do that at a bar in the evening. 

I think living in a big city, in not so awesome neighborhoods, and having had quite a few awkward, creepy people try to talk to me has set me up to isolate. I second guess and analyze the intentions of anyone randomly coming up to me. I get really impatient when talking to people that I don't really enjoy talking to or who I feel have ulterior motives to their conversation. My tolerance for putting up with things I don't want to put up with has gone way down as I have gotten older. Which is actually why I am moving. I am done with wanting to leave Chicago and not leaving, dealing with winter which makes me crabby and feeling stuck through all of it.

Not having a network of close reliable friends is going to force me to have to talk to people. To meet as many people as possible and to feel comfortable talking about myself to strangers as well as having myself as the only person I know in the room. In other words, I will need to be social in a way that I am usually not. I am not queen social butterfly. I really enjoy meeting new people and I really enjoy having conversations with people I just met if I find what they have to say interesting. I also like having my alone time to get my own shit done, my thoughts in order and to do the things that I like to do that nobody else does. Like knitting and a movie on my couch. (Note to self: Look up knit nights at LA knitting shops.)

 I look forward to having to push myself in a direction that I don't normally go in. I am just not looking forward to having to do it all the time. And having to be "on" all the time because I won't have too many people that I can chill and be "off" with.