Going to the cinema alone
Of all the things people are nervous about doing on their own, this is the one with the least to be nervous about. You sit in a dark room, facing the same direction as everybody else, in silence, for two hours. Nobody can see you and nobody is supposed to talk to you. It is the easiest place in public to be alone, and it is a good place to start.
Why the cinema is easier than everywhere else
Compare it to a restaurant. At a table, you are lit, facing the room, and the furniture is built for two. At the cinema the lights go down within ten minutes of you sitting, everyone faces one way, and a single seat is the unit the whole room is sold in. There is no host counting your party, no second place setting to clear, and no bill arriving at a table with one person at it.
The exposure is compressed into about fifteen minutes: the walk from the door to your seat, and the wait before the trailers. After that the room is dark and it is over. Almost everything below is about those fifteen minutes, because the film itself takes care of itself.
Where it sits on the ladder
The same activity is two different exercises depending on when you go, which is why "go to the cinema alone" is not a single instruction:
A quiet weekday afternoon is a two. The same film on a Saturday night, with the foyer full of groups, is a three — not because the film changed but because the foyer did. Do the two first. There is no level 5 for cinema in the library, and inventing one would be padding: at that point you are into festivals and trips, which belong to travel and culture rather than to an evening at the pictures.
Picking the showing
For a first time, the variables that matter are the day, the hour and the age of the film.
A weekday afternoon is the quietest room you will find. Midweek evenings are next. Avoid opening weekend of anything large, not because it is dangerous but because the foyer is at its most group-shaped and the queue is long enough to think in.
The best trick is the third or fourth week of a film's run. The audience has thinned to people who actually wanted to see it, the screen is often one of the smaller ones, and nobody is there as an event. A film that has been out a month on a Tuesday at four is about as gentle as this gets.
Booking one seat
Book online. It removes the counter conversation entirely and it lets you choose where you sit instead of being handed whatever is left.
On the seat map, the good single seat is not the one at the end of a row. It is a seat with an empty seat on at least one side, in the middle third of the room, a few rows back from the middle. Aisle seats are worth it if you want to leave without climbing over anybody.
One thing worth knowing: booking systems will happily sell you a single seat wedged between two booked pairs. Look at the map before you confirm and take the one with air around it if there is a choice. This is a comfort question and not a rule.
The fifteen minutes before the trailers
This is the only genuinely exposed part, and the answer is to shorten it. Arriving with five minutes to spare is better than arriving with twenty-five. There is no advantage to sitting in a lit room watching people come in.
If you do arrive early, the concession queue is a useful place to be, because standing in a queue is the most ordinary thing a person can be doing. Buy something. Carrying a drink and a box of something into the screen gives your hands a job and makes you a customer rather than a person waiting.
In the seat, before the lights go: this is where a phone is actually the right tool, and one of the only times this site will say so. Everybody else in the room is on theirs.
What if I see somebody I know
You say hello, they say hello, and you both watch the film. If you would rather explain yourself, "I fancied seeing it and nobody else was free" is a complete sentence that costs nothing and is usually true.
The version of this fear that is worth naming is the one where you imagine them telling somebody. They will not, because it is not interesting. A person seeing a film is not news.
A late showing on your own
The film is not the part to think about; the walk back is. Know how you are getting home before you book, park somewhere lit if you drive, and if the last showing ends after midnight in a place you do not know, take the earlier one instead. That is not timidity, it is the same thing you would do on any night out.
When it stops being difficult
Faster than you expect, and it is worth having a record of it rather than a vague impression. Rate how nervous you feel out of ten before you go, and again on the way home. Do it every time.
What usually happens with the cinema, more clearly than with anything else, is that the second number drops almost immediately and the first number takes three or four goes to follow it. That gap between how bad you expect it to be and how bad it is is the thing you are training. Once the before-number has come down to where the after-number lives, this one is done, and you can spend the nerve somewhere harder — a table for one is the usual next step, and an afternoon in a museum is the sideways one.
Solo Era
One thing to do on your own each week, graded, with the before-and-after numbers kept for you and the line drawn over months. An iPhone app.
Questions about going to the cinema alone
Is it weird to go to the movies alone?
No. It is one of the most common things there is to do alone, which is why cinemas sell single seats as standard and no booking system asks you to justify one.
Is it sad to go to the cinema by yourself?
It is not, and it is worth separating two different things: going alone because nobody was free, and going alone because you wanted to. They feel different from the inside and identical from the outside. The second one is the reason plenty of people keep doing it after they no longer have to.
Where should I sit if I am on my own?
Middle third of the room, a few rows behind the centre, with an empty seat beside you if the map allows. An aisle seat if you would rather be able to leave easily.
What is the best time to go alone for the first time?
A weekday afternoon, three or four weeks into a film's run. Quiet room, small screen, nobody there for the occasion.
Should I take my phone out before it starts?
Before the lights go down, yes, and everybody else will be doing the same. Once the film starts, no, for the ordinary reason.
Looking for somewhere to go? Find ten things to do alone in your city, each linked to places on Google Maps.