I'm an introvert and sometimes I want to go alone, yet I don't want "strange looks".
**EDIT*. I don't mean fast-food places. I mean establishments where you sit down and have to wait longer for the food to arrive (i.e. family-run restaurants).
Exactly who is going to give you strange looks? I traveled for my job and spent many nights out each year, so I would always have dinner and sometimes lunch alone - it's actually very relaxing.
Depending on the type of restaurant but most restaurants usually have bar areas and I'll go sit at the bar. I've had no problem doing that and always get great service from the bartender.
No, not weird at all. Lots of people eat at restaurants alone. In fact, in cities around the world, it's common for single people to have different "haunts" where they like to go and eat and/or have a drink of some kind while doing something like cruise the internet, or look over e-mails, etc. Usually it's more common for them to go to more casual places like diners and cafe's, but they'll make use of fancy sit-down restaurants too, if they feel like it and can afford it. In that situation, it's not unusual for the single person to make friends with the people working at the restaurant if they're a regular; particularly if it's a family-owned restaurant.
That's so weird; I left out a part in my original post that I have a friend in the South who likes to go to this one Mexican restaurant in her town, and the entire staff there are her friends. They all act like her big brothers and check in on her whenever she visits. They even called her and asked if she was okay when a tornado touched down in their town a few years ago.
So yes, I think you would do just fine in a place like that :)