The Unexpected Pleasure of Doing Things Alone

By Joe Pinsker

你会享受一个人在餐厅用餐的时光吗？还是宁可躲在家里吃泡面，也不想一个人孤零零地坐在餐厅，被人误会没有朋友？两年前，荷兰新开了一家名为Eenmaal的概念餐厅，专为独自用餐的顾客准备了“单人餐桌”，旨在让人们学会享受独处带来的愉悦感。无论是一个人听场演唱会，参观美术馆，还是去咖啡厅坐坐……可能你会把它想得很糟，但结果也许还不赖哦。

Two years ago, a Dutch creative agency opened a concept restaurant in Amsterdam that would be, in the words of its founder, “the perfect place to dine in pleasant solitude1. solitude: 独处。.” The restaurant is called Eenmaal—this name has been translated into English as “dinner for one”—and was launched in an attempt to start dissolving the stigma attached to going out alone.2. dissolve: 消除，使消失；stigma: 污名。Apparently picking up on the same cultural drift, a new fast-casual restaurant in Washington, D.C., has tiered, bench-like seating with individual trays, an arrangement that caters to solo diners.3. 美国华盛顿一家新开的休闲快餐店显然也注意到了这个文化风潮，店里有一排排像工作台一样的座位，上面摆放着单人餐盘，这种布局正是为了招待那些单独用餐的人。pick up on: 〈美口〉注意到，了解到；drift: 动向，趋势；tiered:成排的；bench: 工作台；tray: 碟子，托盘；cater to: 迎合，满足……的需要。

As antisocial as those ideas may sound, it’s surprising that the world hasn’t seen more of them. Today, more than a quarter of American households are home to just one person—a figure that has tripled4. triple: 使成三倍。since 1970. Also, the median age5. median age: 中位年龄，指将所有人按年龄大小排列后，位于中点的年龄。at which Americans get married has recently reached a record high. Given these demographic shifts, one would think that by now, going out to the movies or to dinner alone wouldn’t be the radical acts they still are.6. demographic: 人口统计的；radical: 极端的，过激的。

A study in theJournal of Consumer Researchgets at why most people are so reluctant7. reluctant: 不情愿的。to leave home and do fun things on their own. In a series of experiments, the University of Maryland’s Rebecca Ratner and Georgetown’s Rebecca Hamilton demonstrated that when it comes to going to the movies or to dinner, individuals consistently think they won’t enjoy themselves as much if they aren’t going with any of their friends.“People decide to not do things all the time just because they’re alone,” Ratner toldThe Washington Post. “But the thing is, they would probably be happier going out and doing something.”

Some of Ratner and Hamilton’s experiments had subjects trying to imagine themselves in certain situations—running errands8. run errands: 办差事，跑腿。, watching movies at home, going out to dinner—alone or with others, and forecasting how much they’d enjoy doing them. But the experiment that is the most telling compared subjects’ predictions to how the experiences actually played out.9. 但实验最重要的一项是将实验对象的预想和实验的真实结果进行对比。telling: 重要的，有影响的；prediction: 预测；play out: 完成，结束。The researchers stopped 86 passers-by in a college’s student union—some of them recruited while walking alone,others in a group—and asked them to stroll through a nearby art gallery,10. recruit: 吸收，招收；stroll: 闲逛；art gallery: 美术馆，画廊。but only after they’d predicted how much they’d enjoy it. Comparing those results to surveys after the trip,the researchers found that the solo gallery-goers predicted lower levels of enjoyment, even though they ended up enjoying the experience about as much as those who went with company.

The researchers determined that the main reason people didn’t think they’d enjoy themselves is that they were afraid other people would think they didn’t have any friends. (That effect was only present for public activities—watching a movie on the couch wasn’t considered less appealing when done alone, but going to a theater was.)

Another experiment revealed the irrationality at the core of this fear.11. reveal: 揭示；irrationality: 不合理。The researchers found that individuals assume the judgments they receive for being alone are going to be much harsher than those they’d pass on others in the same situation.12. 研究人员发现，对于独自一人（这种情况），人们预想可能会得到的评价比他们实际上给别人的评价要难听得多。harsh: （声音）刺耳的，难听的；pass on: 对……做出鉴定。They thought they’d be seen as unusual, antisocial, and strange for going somewhere without friends, but said they wouldn’t attach these labels as strongly to someone they witnessed, say, sitting alone at a movie theater.13. attach a label to sb.: 认为某人具有某种特点；say: 例如。

Ratner and Hamilton also ran some experiments to see how they might be able to nudge14. nudge: 推进，刺激。people to go out by themselves. They realized that there wasn’t the same mental block15. mental block: 心理阻隔，心理障碍。against going to the grocery store alone, and theorized that this was because shopping represented getting something done. Sure enough, subjects who pondered16. ponder: 仔细考虑，默想。going to a coffee shop on their own thought it sounded more enjoyable when they were told they had reading material and could be productive than when they were going simply to enjoy a drink. Getting people to think of an experience as an accomplishment might make them more likely to do it without a friend’s company. The researchers’ other advice to marketers was to try and revise social norms by, for example, designating sections at concerts for music lovers who are there alone, or building communal tables for individual diners at restaurants.17. 研究人员还建议那些营销商尝试改变以往的社会规范，例如为单独前往演唱会的音乐爱好者们安排一些区域，或是为在餐厅里单独用餐的人搭建公共餐桌。revise: 修正；social norm: 社会规范；designate: 指定，标明；communal: 公共的。

The next step in revising the way solo activities are thought of, though,is about how present people are when they do them: In the absence of fellow diners, many of the customers at Eenmaal, the blog Food Republic18. Food Republic: 大食代，是新加坡Bread Talk集团旗下的知名美食广场品牌。reported, ended up staring at their phones anyway. These days, when a phone is never farther than an arm’s length away, “alone” just doesn’t mean when it used to.