The first thing I did after signing my first New York City lease was walk to my closest neighborhood bar and have brunch alone. I sat at the bar, yapped with the bartender for an hour, and felt something I had not felt in a long time: genuinely excited about my own life. I had made it. I was here. And I was celebrating by myself, for myself.
I moved to New York in 2022 for a job. I did not know many people. In the first few weeks, I noticed I craved something I hadn’t budgeted for: a social life. But building one from scratch in a city this size takes time, and in the meantime I did what a lot of ambitious women do when they are lonely but won’t admit it. I buried myself in work. I told myself that was enough, but it wasn’t. What I eventually figured out, slowly and somewhat reluctantly, was that I had to build a life I was genuinely okay living in, not just a career I was proud of.
So I started taking myself out. Not as a reward. Not as a self-care Sunday treat. As a practice. As a commitment to the life I wanted to be living right now, not the one I was waiting for the right person to make possible.
This is what that looks like for me. New restaurants and bars across every neighborhood I want to know better. Coffee shops where I park myself for hours. Park walks with no destination. Movies, at least once a week, because yes, I am an AMC A-Lister and I am very proud of it. Events I see promoted online that look interesting. Singles mixers. Museum exhibits. Anything that sounded like something I would want to do with someone else, I started doing by myself first.
I will be honest, I have never felt uncomfortable doing this. Anxious, yes. There is a specific kind of vulnerability in sitting alone at a table set for two, especially in a city where everyone seems to be somewhere with someone. My solution is simple: I always have a book with me just in case I feel the need to get lost in something. I make a point not to spend solo time doomscrolling. Sometimes I will work through my to-do list, journal a little, or FaceTime my mom to check in since she’s on the other side of the U.S. in California, where my entire family resides. But the ultimate goal is to be present with myself. To treat time with myself the way I would treat time with someone I wanted to impress.
Here is what that practice has quietly done for my dating life.
I take myself out so consistently, and with so little friction, that it has recalibrated what I am willing to accept from someone who wants to take me out. It does not take much but a plan, reservation, and a little intention. I am genuinely a low maintenance girl — I like activities where there is room to talk, to laugh, to actually be in each other’s company. The movie theater is the exception because I need silence and focus. But the bar, the restaurant, the walk through a neighborhood neither of us has explored; that is a low lift. I do it for myself all the time. So when someone who is supposedly pursuing me cannot be bothered to do the same, I clock it a lot quicker now. Not because I am keeping score, but because I already know what it looks like when someone prioritizes the experience. I do it every week.
That is the thing about dating yourself that nobody tells you upfront. It is not really about the solo brunch or the solo movie or the solo walk through the park. It is about the relationship you build with your own expectations. When you stop waiting for someone else to give you the life you could be living right now, your standards stop being a wish list and start being a baseline. You know what a good time feels like because you have been giving yourself one. And anyone who wants to join that life has to actually show up for it.
I still take myself out. Even now, with friends, a social life, and people to call. I still go to the movies alone every week. I still find the new restaurant and sit at the bar and yap with whoever is behind it. And it’s not because I am lonely anymore, but because I built something I actually like living in. And I am not about to stop tending to it just because someone else showed up.
So this is your friendly reminder to take yourself out this week, not as a treat, but as a practice.