I did something earlier this week that I don't think I've ever done before. I ate out for dinner...alone. The husband was taking the daughter to her violin lesson and I decided I wanted pizza. No. I didn't just want pizza. I had an insane craving for pizza. Not gourmet pizza, but good old Mr. Gatti's Pizza.
I try not to do loud restaurants. Mr. Gatti's is loud and has the kind of chaotic noise that makes me so uncomfortable I could cry. However, the craving was strong. The fam doesn't care much for pizza, so I whipped into the parking lot on two wheels and went in before I could change my mind.
The noise was awful even with few people there, but I handled it better than usual. Didn't even put paper in my ears. Nobody looked at me like I had leprosy or pointed or anything. Thought they might ya know....because folks with no dinner partner are suspect of...something...aren't they?
It was actually kinda nice. When I'm with the fam I sometimes feel pressured to talk. I also have to try extra hard to tune out noise and focus...so that I can listen to what they want to say. I just ate my pizza and watched TV or stared out the window. It was quite a good experience. I wouldn't want to eat alone all the time because I like my family and meals out are a great time to visit and touch base.
I did like it well enough that I'll probably do it again sometime though. Nothing socially horrible happened. Nothing happened at all. It was fine. It was more than fine. I guess I thought folks would think I was weird and stare. I imagined a neon sign flashing over my head saying, "Too weird to have family or friends to eat with. Stay back." With the asperger I always FEEL so weird that I think I must LOOK or ACT weird. Guess I don't and that makes me happy.
3 comments:
I did that myself for the first time a few weeks ago. I needed to get out of the house so I took m y laptop over to the McDonalds and did some actual work while munching on some nuggets. It took me alot of courage to actually do that and it wasn't the most comfortable thing either, but I also did enjoy it.. it was nice to have a change of scenery, be able to work on something and not feel like I have to be sociable. Eating in front of people is not a comfortable thing for me to begin with, even family there is always that feeling that I am being watched and judged, but I did like just being able to be on my own. I won't go to the McDonalds again, the food was quite disgusting and it can be very loud there but I am planning on getting out and doing some work at some nice internet cafes or something.
I have to say that my DH and DD have been helping me a lot with my fat issue lately. I tell them why I don't want to go places alone or with them. They both tell me they see fat ladies everywhere and encourage me to go out with them.
I don't tend to see size except when I'm looking at myself. As I've been consciously looking at folks with size in mind, I see that there ARE lots of large ladies out and about. As a matter of fact, mostly what I see are larger folks.
There have been a couple of black tie type events I've had to attend lately where that wasn't true. I noticed that there were definitely a lot more skinny ladies than large ladies, but there were still quite a few large ladies and all of them looked fabulous!
The internet cafe thing sounds wonderful!
LoL! That's really funny! thanks for posting I really enjoyed it!
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