The traditional couple model is in crisis. And it has translated into more people eating alone in restaurants

Eating is a necessity, a pleasure … and also (in your own way) A social act. Around the tables we celebrate, remember and honor. We remain for dinner in our first events, to celebrate birthdays and promotions, the arrival of the New Year or say goodbye to that friend who moves to another city. Eating has always been synonymous with sharing, especially if we do it in a bar, where it also becomes a public act, exposed to unknown looks.

Or at least so it was until now.

Table for one, please. It is very simple. He arrives with any restaurant at rush hour and observing the room: There are more and more people eating alone. And not by obligation or because he does not have anyone to share dinner. On the contrary. We do it by choice, to enjoy loneliness and backs to the stigma that until not so long persecuted those who sat alone at tables that were designed precisely to gather large groups.

Impressions … and data. As with most trends, there are studies and percentages that help us better understand their scope. Although finding a site to eat alone It is not always simplein the OpenTable US calculates that the reserves for a single diner 64% have shot Since 2019. Moreover, between 2022 and 2023, Resyanother New York reservation platform, calculates that requests of this type increased by 21%.

They are forceful percentages and it is not unreasonable to think that they are short. After all, both opening and resy register only those who reserve in advance, not those who appear in the premises without calling before.

Is there more data? Yes. And although there may be variations from one study to another, most point in the same direction. In 2024, opening calculated that the alone dinners in the United Kingdom had experienced a year -on -year increase of 14%percentage that in the case of Manchester stretched until reaching 23%.

Other studies They also talk that the ‘Only Dining’ He has gained weight in Germany and Japan or that the number of Americans who recognize having recently has grown by 53% In just two decades, between 2003 and 2023.

And Spain? There are some indicators that suggest that Spain does not remain oblivious to that trend. In 2022 Mapfre published A FOOD REPORT in which he revealed that, although most of the Spaniards continue to enjoy the family meals, between 2017 and 2022 the number of people who sit at the table without company, especially during working days, increased 5%. In 2020, in full pandemic, Thefork also perceived that the reserves for a single person had grew by 4% In our country. Of course, they were still a minority.

In an attempt to go further in 2024 Reasonwhy did A poll Among several restaurant chains with presence in Spain that showed that, at least in part of them, it is increasingly common to see customers without company. Well because they are more or because those who already ate alone before do it now more often. Alsea, behind Vips, Ginos or Foster´s Hollywood, requires that 7% of Foster´sy customers 18% of those of VIPs eat without anyone next.

And what is the reason? The right thing would be to talk about reasons, in plural. When analyzing the trend, so much The sector As analysts usually coincide in certain factors that have clearly influenced customers. Above all there are two: pandemic, with its restrictions and fear of infection; and a cultural change that leads us to look with other eyes to those who sit in a restaurant without a company. “That a person was lonely has always been might, but now that taboo to exhibit loneliness has broken,” Notice in The country José A. González, anthropologist.

“It was growing before pandemic, but now it has been strengthened because we have become accustomed to being alone,” agrees Chef Lola Marín. “In addition, it was unthinkable that a woman was alone to eat or take a wine to a bar. Luckily it is now more common.” Even in networks They can be found Videos of people who presume that: to enjoy their dinner alone.

Generational issue? There are those who believe that there is another factor that has influenced so much or more than the COVID: the change of mentality that accompanies the Z generation and the Millennials. Whether or not the truth is that the trend is accompanied by a transformation of Spanish society itself, in which It is increasingly common meet people living alone. If the INE forecasts do not fail in 2039 there will be some 7.7 million of unipersonal homes, 33.5% of the total.

Question of loneliness (s). That we normalize loneliness does not mean that all loneliness is the same or all its positive effects. In fact it also carries certain challenges, as I collected recently An article of The New York Times in which a curious relationship is pointed out: in the US the increase of the people who eat alone has coincided with a worsening of the country’s general happiness index. The reason: not all loneliness is deliberate.

The professor of the University of Oxford Jan-Emmanuel de Neve even It goes further and reflect on the implications that excessive isolation can have. “That we are increasingly socially isolated also assumes that we do not test our ideas about the world with other people,” he says. The result, in his opinion, is an amplification of echo chambers and polarization.

Image | Ismail Hamzah (Unspash)

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