NEW YORK CITY – If you want to have some time for yourself, you can go to the gym, the hairdresser or go on a spontaneous shopping trip. But more and more people are adding going out to eat to their list of things they want to do alone.

On OpenTable, reservations for individual diners increased 8% in the year through May 31 compared to the previous 12 months.

The restaurant reservation booking platform surveyed 2,000 consumers over the summer and found that 60% of people ate alone in the past year, including 68% of Generation Z and Millennials.

“I think everyone should travel alone. For me, traveling alone was the greatest personal development I’ve ever experienced,” says Christina Ford.

The freelance writer and blogger is constantly traveling and knows what she is doing, but she found that restaurants in Europe did not accommodate her food preferences as much as she had hoped.

“They say they don’t want a single person drinking something or eating half a meal and taking up a table for two, no matter when,” she recalls.

Yet in the United States, a record 30 percent of Americans live alone and are marrying later and less frequently. Statistics show that the proportion of married Americans with children has declined from 1970, when 67 percent of Americans were married.

FOX 5 NY Kendall Green asked a few solo travelers what sparks this trend. They concluded that it’s more the restaurant and the staff that make them feel at home. Ford, on the other hand, hopes that other restaurants will soon see solo diners in a different light.

“I sat down and ordered my meal alone. A few minutes later the waitress came with a glass of champagne and I said that I hadn’t ordered it. She said that’s what we do for those who eat alone,” she said.