I usually just chalk those memes up to teenagers who overthink everything or socially immature people. I often decompress at lunch by leaving the office and grabbing a meal alone somewhere.

I’m kinda reminded of that Kurzgesagt video on loneliness. The video talked about how people who experience loneliness begin to pay more attention to other’s expressions but interpret them incorrectly as negative.

I have seen people express how weird they find people wanting to eat alone occasionally throughout my life, and even had some volunteer to eat with me "so I wouldn't be alone". When I say that I wanted to eat alone, they expressed genuine concern that it is weird to not want company. If I let them sit and talk then they feel good about themselves and leave me alone for a bit.

Honestly the pressure I got from being pestered about eating alone ended with me just eating lunch at my desk and I absolutely love work from home. Going out with coworkers once a month was plenty. They are fun and all, but most times I just want eating to be when I take a break from other people.

I still do and prefer it. I also go to bars by myself on and off. A buddy of mine would decline going to lunch with anyone else so he could go decompress. About once a week he'd come back bitching because someone would go into an empty restaurant and sit as close to him as possible.

My favorite story of his complaining (rightfully so in my opinion) is where he went to a restaurant with benches around the perimeter and sat in the corner far from the only other customer there. He hadn't been there two minutes before some woman came and sat on the bench seat closest to him and started asking him about the book he was reading and generally making small talk. He got so pissed that he ate in his truck for weeks instead of sitting down in a restaurant.

I think she was badly trying to flirt and didn't have the situational awareness to understand that he was trying to get away. He thinks she didn't want to look like she was eating alone and didn't care that she was intruding on a stranger.

One of these things is not like the others

How I saw all the lotr films

Very clearly not the point op is making at all

Like, the point they're making and your comment are completely unrelated

I would go even further. I enjoy things much more, when I can share the experience with others. I could go out alone, yes, but why should I?

On the opposite, I don’t really get movie theatre as a social activity.

Watching a movie is a passive, solitary activity that you do in the same place and time as other people. It feels to me like it has the same social significance as meeting and then everyone checking their phone for two hours. Sure there is a shared experience at the end of it, but there are a thousand things you could do instead in order to experience things together, most of which more interactive and more “social”.

For me the only benefit of going with a friend is pushing each other to actually go and see the movie. But for myself, I have watched movies alone and didn’t find it significantly better or worse than going with company.

For those of us without 100" 4K HDR TVs and perfect speaker setups, yes it is worth it. Not for every movie but there are movies I am very glad to have gone to the theater for because watching it at home on a 24 inch monitor and headphones is far less immersive and exciting an experience. Yes, even with popcorn crunching.

Is the bigger screen that important?

Depends on the movie. If it's some drama or something a normal sized screen isn't much different experience but like a huge action movie with large scale stuff happening the bigger screen adds to the experience. I went and saw Godzilla Minus One in the theater and it was amazing. Maybe if I had a nice home theater set up it would be different but if I'm not watching a movie at the theater it's usually on my PC monitor at home or my small TV.

Sometimes the people I enjoy movies didn't want to see the same movies, so I have gone alone to see something on the big screen. Not often since large flatscreens made most movies more enjoyable at home, but I would go slone if the situation came up again.

Honestly being alone or with people isn't that much different when I'm watchijg a movie, unless they are distracting. The only thing I get out of going with others is talking about the movie sfter.

i upvote therefore i validate

At the end of the universe, there is a café with the last known entities that persist. They exchange stories, favorite experiences and say their goodbyes to one another, ancient and forgotten.

There's a dreaded moment when straws are drawn or a volunteer is called to be the last one to turn off the lights -- to herald the calling of the next universe.

No one wants to do it however, because the last one has to do it alone.

It's in that quiet abyss, in the consuming darkness, the expanse and contracted void of dead light, where stars no longer shine, where trillions of lives existed and were extinguished -- that an epiphany can be had, as one celestial appendage holds over the reset toggle:

Everything matters. Even if no one is around to experience it.

-- Click --