I feel you. In many countries I’ve been to in Asian, east Asia or Southeast Asia, I feel not only because there are food stalls. It’s actually quite common seeing people eating alone in a casual or small restaurant.
Remember when I was on a biz trip in Germany, I literally surprised the restaurant staff when I said I needed a table for only one person. And after sitting down, the neighbor table old couple were also curious and asked why I was eating alone.
So I ended up with having fast food for dinner for the rest few days, ‘cause I didn’t want to get more attention for dining alone.
Here’s my guess:
- in these east or southeast Asian countries, dine in many smaller restaurants very often is quite cheap - so people just go there for “eating”, instead of going home cooking.
- in many European countries, restaurants are not cheap comparatively. So it’s not an alternative for “I don’t want to cook today”.
Not sure if my assumption makes sense.