How do I not look like a tool when eating alone in a public setting?

If you ever see anyone eating anywhere and they are without any company, you can reasonably infer that they have no friends and will die alone with no lasting mark on this world save for a half-written memoir that will be lost when their computer is accidentally dropped by distant family trying to sell their possessions only a week after their death. However, you might find yourself with a good circle of friends and loved-ones but are nonetheless, on a rare occasion, eating alone. Maybe you need some fast food on your way somewhere and you don’t like eating in your car. Maybe you don’t have a car and the food would be cold by the time you walked home. Whatever the reason, everyone is going to think you’re just a shell of a human being unless you employ some of the following tactics:

Use your cell phone while you eat.
Cell phones are designed so that no one will ever have to communicate with anyone face-to-face, so if an onlooker sees you eating alone but utilizing your phone, the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that this is only a fleeting instance of aloneness and you clearly have thriving social links. Speak into your phone at an audible volume while talking about all the crazy shenanigans your friends have been involved in recently. Feel free to lie and make shenanigans are extra exciting. It’s very important that everyone else at Chipotle sees you for the fun guy you are. Another option is to keep sampling the same ring tone over and over so it would appear to an onlooker that people are constantly calling you.

Don’t be writing a screenplay while you eat.
If anyone had any doubts about you leading a lonely life because you’re eating alone, writing a screenplay as you stuff your face is going to make things that much worse. You are eating alone because no one wants to hear about your film about a busty, half-werewolf, half vampire, eighteen-year old who coaches an inner-city high school chess team. That idea sucks and you suck.

Knit or crochet.
You’ve seen old ladies knitting or crochet publicly and you know they’re not knitting for themselves. If someone sees you knitting, they can only assume you’re a generous person with plenty of friends.

Just kidding. They’d just silently hate you.