Tell Me What Happened When I Saw My First Movie Alone

I like being alone. I'm a very social person by nature, but after a long weekend multiple-girlfriend brunches, dance parties, drinks at loud bars, and general socialization, I'm happy to bury my face in a book and have a quite moment to myself. People-watching in the corner of a coffee shop, breakfast at a restaurant I've never tried, a long walk with a book-on-tape playing in my IPod...these are all things I enjoy doing in the company of myself.

One thing I had never done alone in my 27 1/2 years on earth, had never even had any desire to do alone, was see a movie...until a couple weeks ago. Although, it was less of a desire to see a movie alone than it was to get that "I've never seen a movie alone" thing out of the way (on the other hand, I've never been to a strip club before and have less than no desire to do that).

So I picked a day (a rainy Sunday), turned down multiple offers from friends to join me (that would kinda defeat the purpose of "seeing a movie alone"), and bought a ticket for a matinee of There Will Be Blood at the ArcLight...but not before I drove to the Vista Theater, got scared of the giant line of people out front, turned my car around and went home, convinced myself that I could do this, and forced myself to pay for the ticket online so I couldn't back out of it again.

I really don't know why I was so damn nervous to see a movie by myself. I guess new things in general kinda freak me out a little, and I think I had built this up so much in my brain that it had turned into this Big Thing, rather than what it really was...killing some time on a boring Sunday, alone.

The verdict? I don't feel the need to ever see a movie alone again. First off, I'm not the type of person to answer "I guess we could see a movie" to the question "What do you feel like doing?". Aside from going to check out a movie that I've been interested in seeing, sitting quietly in a dark theater for 2+ hours seems like a giant waste of time to me. I'd so much rather go out to dinner! or drinks! or for a walk! or to UCB Theater! to Target! or to the mall!...whatever! I guess I'm the kinda girl that likes a little interaction and participation with her mind-numbing/capitalistic entertainment.

A couple of other things that may have clouded my view on my Go See A Movie Alone Day! day:
-I picked what might be the #1 "You're Gonna Want Someone To Talk To About This Movie After You Watch It" movie.
-While it looked beautiful and I thought the soundtrack was stunning, the movie?...a little boring.
-Recently-blogged-about exboyfriend was in the lobby with his cute girlfriend as I was leaving.

Which brings me to something I've wanted to do for a while...I'm ending this post as a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure!
Did I:

a) Say a warm "hello" and accept their invitation to reminisce about old times over a bottle (or two) of wine at a dimly lit bar down the street.

b) Pretend I was talking to someone on my cell phone and hang my head low in hopes of not being recognized, breathing a sigh of relief as I exited the theater unnoticed...until I got to the parking lot and realized that, in my haste, I had forgotten to get my parking pass validated which meant that I would either have to fork up $15-or-so to get out of the parking structure, or go back into the theater to get validated which would mean a second chance to possibly get recognized.

c) Ask an equally-alone and very good-looking young gentlemen if he wouldn't mind pretending to be my boyfriend so I wouldn't look like a loner when my ex saw me...which turned into him telling me he thought we had "a real connection", and me stupidly giving him my phone number cause I'm a sucker for potentially romantic twist-of-fates...but he ended up calling me three times a day and leaving creepy voicemails until I finally demanded that he stop calling me.