The single place setting deserves the same care as a table arranged for guests.

Care tends to be treated as something owed to other people, as though eating alone were a lesser occasion that could be got through rather than laid out. Yet the person sitting down is a person, and the meal is a real hour of a real life. A plate rather than the pan, a napkin, a cleared surface: none of it is fuss, it is simply the same regard extended inwards.

At your next meal alone, set the place properly and sit at it. Do not read the whole time. Notice whether the food tastes different when the setting suggests someone worth feeding.