Tips for having the perfect solo date
Going to the cinema to see that movie about a Japanese septuagenarian who makes the best dumplings filled with red bean paste, daring to try once and for all those cooked pork dumplings that catch your eye so much, set the alarm clock very early to go see the sunrise or simply take a walk accompanied by that playlist that Spotify has designed just for you. Forget about trying to convince someone to do it with you and dare to do it alone. Carve out a couple of hours in your busy schedule and give yourself a little time to have the perfect date. Best of all, you don't even have to feel blue or lonely doing it.
“The question is how do you do it. If you go to a restaurant and you are very focused on your senses, that is the way to not feel alone: concentrating on what you are eating, on the smell, the taste ", tells us Artur Vericat , expert in life coaching and director of the ** Institut Coach **. "Also, if you are a curious person, a restaurant for example is a place where you learn a lot by observing."
Take time and focus on what you do
To finish dismantling the myth that a book or a magazine is the perfect company to enjoy an agape alone, Vericat tells us about mindfulness or full consciousness . "(Consists in) be very attentive to your senses, whatever you do . While you are eating it is better to have a very intimate relationship with what you are doing”.
And yes, that also includes (rather excludes) your precious inseparable smartphone. It is better to ignore it in your personal dates. “ The point is not to do two things at the same time and be very much in the present. . If you are eating, you have to have the feeling that you are eating. Sometimes we are reading or whatever and we don't even know what we have eaten”, explains Vericat.
psychologist and counselor Sandra Martinez-Rovira she agrees about dispensing with the cell phone at certain times. She, for example, advises not to look at it during car or train journeys , “to be able to enjoy the journey, which in the end is the most important part of the trip”.
Martinez-Rovira gives us another way to meet the solo date challenge: going to the cinema or the theater . "You don't need to have someone to talk to or for anyone to look at you," she explains to us. “It's also something powerful, you don't have to wear a tracksuit. You can make yourself pretty, comfortable but attractive.” Martinez-Rovira also insists that sometimes it is easier to end up watching the movie that we most want this way that if we have to agree on the choice with a group of friends whose tastes can be very different.
Practice 'mindfulness' or full awareness
KNOW YOURSELF
“Sometimes we can be accompanied by many people and we feel alone and this trip implies the opposite, it would be to look for a space in which you feel completely accompanied by yourself”, reflects Martinez-Rovira on the benefits of the appointment alone. “You have to become aware of who you are and be able to satisfy yourself with what you want”.
And, although the psychologist acknowledges that the date alone may require a point of daring, she also advises that we find a formula of practicing it with which we feel comfortable. For her, taking a walk by the sea, going for a walk with music that helps us connect emotionally, sitting on a terrace reading the newspaper or going to try a Mexican or Indian restaurant that no one else seems to want to go to are good ways to have these personal quotes.
A simplicity of approach with which Vericat agrees. The coach insists that we must achieve ecological objectives. “There are people who say: 'I want to travel alone'. And that's fine, but if I go to South India or Sri Lanka on the first day... Yes, h I've been alone for a month but maybe a stone has come out of my nerves that I've had . Go first from Barcelona to Masnou to see how you feel”.
For Vericat, going to see the sunrise, watch the flight of a bird, get a massage or go to a library to read are some of the little things that they can be enjoyed in perfect solitude.
Set yourself up: seriously
LESS IS MORE
And, if it is essential for both of us to find moments almost daily to dedicate them to ourselves and have personal minidates , it is also true that these wellness professionals give more importance to the quality than to the quantity of that time.
"It's not about the amount of things you do or what an hour can give of itself, but that what you do is what you want. It sounds obvious and it's not. ”, explains Martinez-Rovira, who adds that we do not usually spend time thinking about what we really want to do and we are used to being bombarded by external stimuli.
“ There are people who schedule time for themselves daily . I stay with myself or with myself because if not sometimes we already know what is happening, in the end I forget”, Vericat tells us in turn, admitting that we must learn to recognize those moments alone as an opportunity to celebrate.
Montaigne said that humans will only be fine when we can be in a room alone, doing nothing ”, adds the coach. And it is that the appointment alone can simply consist of spending a few minutes of solitude sought with ourselves.
Along these same lines, Martinez-Rovira insists that we should not be afraid of getting bored. “Boredom can be many things. It may be not acting, but you may be building many things inside: wandering, fantasizing, dreaming, feeling... You can be in an almost paralyzed state because you are at home on a couch or in bed and building ”.
The psychologist recommends us to end the day preferably in the dark and in bed analyzing how things have gone. “Review the day, how it went, what you take from today, what you would like for tomorrow, what made you feel good and what made you feel bad. It is a small closure that allows us to grow and not get stuck in the day to day ”.
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