The Bravest Thing I Did This Month Was: Sit Alone

The bravest thing I did this month was walk into a cafe in Copenhagen, alone, on a Saturday afternoon, and sit at a table for one. No phone as a shield. No book as an excuse. No friend to wait for, no meeting to attend. Just me, a cup of coffee, and the particular vulnerability of being a woman sitting alone in public with absolutely nowhere else she's supposed to be.

I don't know exactly when eating or sitting alone in public became something that required courage. But it did, somewhere along the way, for so many women I know.

There is a specific kind of self-consciousness that arrives the moment you sit down at a table built for two, occupying it by yourself. A small, persistent voice that wonders if people are looking. If they're wondering why you're alone. If being alone, visibly, in a public space somehow announces something about you that you'd rather not announce.

I have spent most of my life avoiding that particular discomfort. Always with someone. Always with a purpose that explained my presence somewhere. Rarely just — there. Alone. On purpose. With nothing to prove and no one to perform for.

So this Saturday, I decided to sit with the discomfort instead of avoiding it.

I ordered a coffee and a piece of cake I didn't need and I did not pull out my phone.

The first ten minutes were genuinely uncomfortable. I noticed myself wanting to check messages, scroll something, anything to signal to the room that I had somewhere to be in my head even if not in my body. I resisted. I just sat. I watched the street outside. I let my coffee get slightly too cool because I wasn't in a hurry to finish it and leave.

And somewhere around minute fifteen, something shifted.

The self-consciousness quieted. I stopped imagining what other people might be thinking about a woman sitting alone, and started actually being there myself — properly there, the way you rarely are when you're managing a conversation or scrolling a phone or waiting for someone. I noticed the light. I noticed an elderly man reading his newspaper three tables over, equally alone, equally unbothered. I noticed that nobody was looking at me at all. They were all far too absorbed in their own lives, their own coffees, their own Saturday afternoons, their own phones....

I sat there for almost an hour. Longer than I'd planned. I left feeling something I haven't quite found the right word for yet — restored, maybe. Or simply reminded that my own company is actually rather good company, when I give it the chance.

This is the kind of adventure that doesn't photograph particularly well. There's no dramatic before-and-after, no impressive new skill to show off. Just a woman, a cafe, a coffee, an hour.

But I think it might be one of the most important things I've done all month.

Crossed off the list: sitting alone in a cafe, properly, without a phone as a shield ✓

Do YOU do this? Or what would it take for you to do this too?

@shestartsat50 There is always room for you here. 🌸