Single Rider-dom

There is a secret back entrance to the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. One needs a secret ticket to even get in. You hand your ticket to the guy with a conspiratorial wink. You wait for an elevator to take you up over the tracks, then scurry gleefully past the plebes in the regular line, and wait for an elevator to take you down, when you are then unceremoniously shoved into a small bamboo-cordoned queue, where a fedora-hatted cast member yells for ones and twos. You then get on the ride.

Total time: < 20 minutes. Always.

Standby time: ~1 hour. A lot of times, more.

I'm on and off before anyone in the slow line even gets to the awesome inside queue.

Being a single rider is pretty advantageous, even when not at Disneyland. 

Want to go see a movie? Even at the most crowded, there's always that one seat in the middle. 

Want to go to a concert? Don't have to keep track of how drunk your friend is getting.

Want to go eat food? You go where you want to go, order what you want to order, flirt gently with the waitstaff, and leave - no bumbling over who wants to go where, indecision, and coordinating a group. 

Really, why add that extra layer of complexity that compounds with every other person you want to bring along? 

Even before I moved back home, I had a tendency to go the single rider route. Even when I had a boyfriend - for my birthday one year, I decided that I was going to see one of the Thor movies ion theaters. I had my ice cream and movie ticket before I realized my boyfriend also just happened to be there at the dame time. I hadn't even thought about asking him. 

It just makes everything so much easier. There's just one person to keep track of, one set of needs to be met, and one person deciding what's on the radio, and zero solid meetup times to miss, zero people to impress, and zero peer pressure. I can come when I want, and leave if it sucks.

It takes so much time and effort to coordinate with even one person sometimes. 

On the flip side, going single rider does tend to be more expensive - no group discounts, no one to split gas with, no one to buy you that shot except yourself. It can be a challenge to strike up a conversation with people I've never met before. You can end up getting thrown in with some unsavory people. 

But there's also the chance to meet someone awesome, so hang with the other single riders, to find out something new that you never would have found out if you were there with someone. The benefits of exploration and being able to just do things can outweigh the costs that come from flying solo by a massive amount. 

Cuz while I love my friends, sometimes, they are just too dang slow.