Ticket for one

A few years ago, just before my 32nd birthday I did something shocking: I went to a concert alone. Oh, and get this. It was in ANOTHER CITY. Crazy right? I mean, everyone knows women just don't do that. I should be thanking my lucky stars right now that I made it home unscathed, and am able to tell of my story.

/sarcasm

I like going to shows. I like having someone to go with; however, I really don't like dragging someone to see a band s/he doesn't like, or has no interest in. I'm not embarrassed to go solo.

I don't see a lot of singles at the shows I go to. As someone with a predilection for artists slightly outside her age group, most of the fans I see are older, married, maybe bringing a teenager or two. Sometimes there are (as a friend of mine put it) a few "older guys in the back," -- the inveterate kinds of fans who make it to five or six or ten shows. They go alone, and no one questions it.

Once inside the club, I staked a place in front and slightly off center (the best spot for photographing.) Some of the other fans chatted me up, asking where I was from. When I said I lived a few hours away, they asked who I came with.

"No one," I said. "Just me."

"Good for you."

Yes, good for me, as if I'd just announced that I placed fourth at the regional spelling bee, or finished that scarf I started back in 2002. Maybe I'm unusually naive, but I never expected that woman going to a concert alone was such a rare thing.