QUOTE : I would rather eat at the bar,<br />but such behavior is regarded<br />by professionals as a form of denial,<br />so here I am seated alone<br />at a table with a white tablecloth<br />attended by an elderly waiter with no name–<br />ideal conditions for dining alone<br />according to the connoisseurs of this minor talent.<br /><br />I have brought neither book nor newspaper<br />since reading material is considered cheating.<br />Eating alone, they say, means eating alone,<br />not in the company of Montaigne<br />or the ever-engaging Nancy Mitford.<br /><br />Nor do I keep glancing up as if waiting<br />for someone who inevitably fails to appear–<br />a sign of moral weakness<br />to those who take this practice seriously.