The shelf · Travelling alone
Does Alone Time hold up?
Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude, by Stephanie Rosenbloom (2018)
A travel memoir and essay on solitude, set across a year spent alone in Paris, Istanbul, Florence and New York.
The short answer
Mostly yes, with care over definitions: Americans eat alone often, but 'more than half the time' depends on counting snacks.
The claims, checked
Americans now eat alone more than half the time.
Holds with conditions The figure depends on counting snacks as meals. On a stricter measure, about 26% of US adults ate every meal of the previous day alone in 2023, up 53% since 2003.
Evidence: World Happiness Report, 2025
Reservations for one on OpenTable grew by more than 60% over two years.
Holds with conditions OpenTable reported 62% growth. It is the company's own data, from 2015, covering only restaurants that use OpenTable.
Evidence: NBC News, 2015
People overestimate how much others notice them, so the fear of being judged when dining alone is exaggerated.
Holds This is the 'spotlight effect' found by Gilovich, Medvec and Savitsky (2000) and widely cited since.
Evidence: Gilovich et al., 2000