Lessons Unlearned

"How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot! 

The world forgetting, by the world forgot."

~ Alexander Pope ~

Vacation mode is a hard mantle to shake. After a week or so the jet lag falls away and the circadian rhythms return to pre-travel standards. After a fortnight, every single sentence ceases to begin with "woah, that's so expensive here, in Sri Lanka things were cheaper," or "woah, that's so cheap here, in Geneva things were more expensive." And finally, after a month or so, the waking dream of foreign travel is replaced with the stark reality that real life has once again banged down your door and has placed its feet on your bed and eaten all your Cheerios. Damn you, stark reality.

Granted it took me a while to get to this point but I'm finally emerging from my extended feeling of "vacation mode" that resulted from my half-year of life on the road. Slowly but surely I reintegrate into the fabric of New York society, whose forlorn loom lay dormant lo these past five months whilst it was denied my thread. I'm loving the easy access to my friends and family, extensive public transportation, and myriad restaurant options, each more exotic than the last. But just a few days ago while perusing the East Village dining scene, I saw undone some of the great personal progress I had made while traveling abroad! Even though I didn't love the idea of it, being on my own for such an extended period allowed me to try new things and forced me to excel at stuff like traveling by myself, drinking by myself and dining by myself.

But now that I'm back where I can understand all the conversations around me, and thanks to a healthy dose of personal conceit assume they are all about me, I no longer feel comfortable marching into a popular restaurant and uttering the soul crushing phrase "table for one." I saw all of this unfold as I was killing a couple hours in the E-Vil last weekend, waiting to meet up with some pre-game companions. Having been kicked out of my friend's apartment moments earlier, I had to find a way to spend two hours and get myself fed. The perfect opportunity to enjoy a leisurely sit-down meal, I thought to myself.

After a brief stroll around the avenues, I traversed the restaurant-laden bazaar that is St. Marks Place dead set on stopping into Yaffa Cafe. As I approached I noticed the excessive crowding of the interior and figured, "gee, it's awfully packed in there, I wouldn't be able to get a table for one right away so I'll keep going." This of course was a lie to cover up the fact that I was scared to dine along amongst such clamor. I reformulated my plan of attack and figure I would check out Hop Devil down the street...but as I approached I noticed the excessive emptiness of its vast interior. "Gee, it's awfully empty in there. I'd stick out like a sore thumb if I was sitting by myself." I felt unable to deal with the inevitable, "are you waiting for someone or do you just want to order and feel alone in the world? also, would you like to hear our specials?" So on I walked.

The cold was biting and my shame mounting, so I figured the best place for a single 30-year-old man with no self-respect to dine in this area was my favorite overpriced taco joint, San Loco. As some of you may know, I love San Loco with the kind of fervor normally felt by creepy shut-ins for 1000 piece puzzles, and I have made many a late night stop there for a solitary Guaco Loco at 4 am. But even two Tecates and a rice and beans soft taco brought me little solace - this wasn't a celebratory wee hours drunky snack. This was a man's dinner, and that man was too scared to eat by himself again.

What the hell had become of adventurous Eric? Like many a vacation beard before it, is so effortlessly my confidence trimmed off once returned home? Was I simply burnt out on keeping on my brave face while abroad that I just needed to hide out in a divey taqueria until I found my pride again?

Then all at once it hit me - I'm simply never going to be happy about dining alone. I can wish it were different or pretend that I'm awesome at being out on my own and not caring about what other people think, or that I'm cool with grabbing a book and reading at a restaurant to wile away an evening instead of standing around at some overcrowded bar as my friends and I discuss how awesome we are for being at an overcrowded bar. Nope, the fact is that my least favorite thing about being abroad and on my own was that whole on my own part. And frankly now that I'm back I see no reason whatsoever to be ok with it now that there are actually people around who want to hang out with me.

I suppose the lessons I learned abroad haven't actually been forgotten now that I'm back home; really I just needed to realize that what I learned was that I couldn't be taught in the first place.