Do we really need influencers to help us navigate the world alone?
On a sunny March afternoon, I wrapped my footy scarf around my neck, laced up my comfiest shoes and set off for the half-hour walk to the MCG. With a podcast playing in my ears, I side-stepped families checking directions and queues snaking around the donut van outside gate 2.
I took my seat in the Shane Warne Stand, clapped along as the Tigers’ theme song trumpeted out of the speakers, and chatted to the English tourist next to me who was witnessing his first Aussie Rules game. When I got bored during quarter-time breaks, I took a walk to find the last available hot dog at the concession stand. After realising the sun, which had been slowly broiling me for hours, offered no hope of respite, I slipped out to watch from a shadier seat near the rowdy hecklers at the Punt Road end.
And when I felt my energy waning, I scanned out at the ticket gates and walked back home. Alone and satisfied.
In recent years, a cottage industry has sprung up on social media offering advice for how to navigate the world on your own. TikTok accounts go viral with recommendations for cafes to visit “as an introvert”. Influencers move to Europe and publish long YouTube videos with travel itineraries for solo tourists. Advice columns offer reassurance that no one else cares if you’re reading a book at a bar with just a glass of Merlot for company. The comments that follow echo the same fear: what if other people notice? What if I’m perceived as being sad and lonely?
It’s revealed to me how strange it is that navigating public spaces the way I do is unusual and scary for some people. That spending time with yourself is something that requires a five-point plan and an adjustment period.
During the Melbourne International Film Festival every year, it’s standard practice for me to step into my first film of the day at 11am and emerge from my fourth or fifth after midnight. Sometimes I run into people I know and we debrief on our highs and lows from the program. Sometimes I’ve deliberately aligned my schedule with a friend’s and we pop off for a quick bowl of khao soi between screenings. But my default setting during that time is an indulgent, selfish one. I book tickets to the movies I want to see, I flick through a paperback before the lights go down, I leave my deliberately chosen aisle seat on the very rare occasion something doesn’t hit for me. Rinse and repeat 30-odd times. It’s a joyous routine.
And it’s one born as much out of hyper-independence as it is practicality. As my friends and I get older and more responsibilities fill our calendars, finding pockets of time when we’re all available is rare and precious. So a free night or weekend afternoon when a movie is on or a band is playing becomes reason enough to leave the house. Especially if the alternative to doing it alone is not doing it at all.
It’s not always simple or affordable to do things on your own. A few years ago, Arts Centre Melbourne was at the centre of a discussion about the industry-wide issue of selling theatre tickets in pairs, thereby punishing “spinsters”. I’ve attempted to take advantage of travel packages offering discounts on flights and hotels, only to learn that “the single tax” means I’d be paying for two people even if only one is checking in. In a world set up for couples and nuclear families, venturing out alone isn’t always convenient or simple, but it’s almost always worth it.
Next month I’m hopping on a flight to the UK, then a train to Europe, where I’ll bop around between hotels and sublets and Airbnbs for three weeks. A few friends will crisscross their travels plans with mine, so we can visit galleries or get expensive French facials or try glamorous restaurants together. But for the bulk of the trip, the only person making decisions on how I spend my day will be me. Given the choice between walking into a wine bar in Paris and asking for “Une table pour une, s’il vous plaît” – even if someone, somewhere on their YouTube channel is terrified that doing so will make them look tragic – or not doing it at all, I always know what I’ll choose.
