If I'm honest I get more dirty looks and have more odd 'oh only one' comments when I'm in the UK, the rudest comment was from a restaurant in Brighton and yes I did give them an awful review on a very public website! But in Europe I tend to just get nice smiles and served in a respectable manner which I love.
The one thing I would suggest is to look on travel compare sites for restaurants and then read the reviews, if you not comfortable with smoking or you don't want a party bar that sells food then you can weave your way through the reviews before finding the one for you. If you are worried about not learning the native tongue but want to eat out then I look for reviews that say English speaking staff and bingo I've found somewhere to eat.
One of the other reasons people don't want to eat out is that the food may seem odd to them, for example I was quite scared when in Helsinki I would be served reindeer then caught a board with the price on and realised I would never be served it as it cost around 30 euros for one small slab of meat. If this is the case then find yourself a restaurant that will do samples so ask at the bar if it's possible to try out the food before ordering, warning though it's around 30% of restaurants who will do this!
The other reason to not eat alone is to not get looks or odd comments which is one thing that puts me off, but you just need a distraction. So while waiting for your meal take a map or book and read while you wait or study where you want to go next. With the map it will highlight your a tourist you may not know anyone in the area and that's why your eating alone, it's a great way to make friends as people are likely to approach you and start a conversation.
So hopefully you found this post interesting, on Monday I shall be posting a Travel Tag post!
Jess XoXoXo
I'm not that good at eating out alone either, but when I do I usually bring my Kindle for "companion" ;)
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