Party Of One

The idea of a woman doing things alone still has stigma attached. But, after coming out of the pandemic consumed by grief, one writer decided to embrace a new kind of solitude. The result was life-affirming

- Eni Subair

It began with a theatre trip to see Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner at the Royal Court Theatre in London. I was working my way through a list I’d made a year earlier, in the midst of the pandemic and my father’s deteriorating health, called ‘All the Things I Want to Do For Myself But Am Too Scared to Do’. The experience of seeing a play on my own was top of the list and, as I headed towards my seat on the first row of the balcony, I turned to the strangers on either side of me, to see if anyone was giving me weird stares. Anxious thoughts began running through my mind: Who would I speak to in the interval? What shall I do if I got bored of my own company? But just as quickly as these worries appeared, they vanished as the lights dimmed and the performance began. I laughed along with the rest of the audience, listened intently to the monologues and, during the interval, I even struck up a conversation with two women who were sitting behind me. I was free to think whatever I wanted about the play without my judgement being clouded by anyone else’s. As I left the theatre, I realised I had been craving an experience like this for so long, and I felt saddened that I hadn’t had the courage to do it sooner.