Do we all love a frothy, overpriced, nut milk latte made by a queer barista who’s cooler than us? Yes. Do the size of city apartments require us to seek out multiple second spaces to live our life? Absolutely. But getting work done at a coffee shop is more than a pleasure or a necessity. It’s a radical, vulnerable act of seeking connection with one’s neighbors.
I’m not talking about full-on conversations. Interrupting a stranger’s pitch-deck-building-time to talk about your date with your ex’s ex is not conducive to the weekday coffee shop environment of quiet, growing doubt. Instead, I’m talking about parallel play: The intimate act of getting something done while another person sits beside you and gets a separate thing done. Or, if you live in New York, while thirty people sit directly on top of you and sort of get something done. It’s what we’re all seeking and I think it’s about time we let one another in on that secret.
I did something radical last Tuesday. Instead of shrugging my shoulders when I saw all eight, two-seater tables were occupied with one participant (leaving a row of eight chairs empty), I bothered a woman at the table closest to the door.
“Mind if I join you?” I asked, phrased as classily as I am.
“Go for it,” she responded, looking up from her matrix of a computer, which was skillfully completing a set of numerical functions while she lifted her fingers from the keyboard. What a lovely, whimsical response. Go for it! And go for it I did. I sat with my coder for two and a half hours. Within that time period, we had quite the relationship. I watched her stuff while she went to the bathroom, commiserated with her when she learned the East Village coffee shop did not in fact have a bathroom (which I already knew but didn’t share so as to avoid being an overbearing desk partner), and helped her locate an outlet for her tired, intelligent computer. We didn’t break any new ground. We left the coffee shop as we entered it, strangers. Yet, for those two and a half hours, we sat together. And that was more than enough.
Of course we are all busy. That’s the nature of New York. And if we suddenly reverted to a Midwestern way of behaving I think the whole city would just about burst into flames. (I remember the first time I rammed into someone in Chicago they said “excuse me” and followed it up with “have a good day, miss.” I felt like I was in Disney World.) But I’m certain a middle ground exists between over-familiar and don’t-even-breathe-in-my-direction strangers.
When I polled a (super skewed) group of my queer friends, none of them had even thought to ask to sit with a stranger before. One points out that it sounds like “literal hell” and getting work done after that interaction would be “impossible,” out of fear of making your table partner uncomfortable or getting in their way.
On the opposite extreme, I am constantly shocked at the rate to which men invite themselves into conversations. Just the other night, one inserted himself into a catchup with my dear friend from Chicago and my cousin with the line: “I have something relevant to say to each of you.”
Even my dad, a certified girl mom, talks to strangers. He means no harm, but my sister and I needed to inform him that making comments about a stranger’s appearance and/or state of being, even when extremely positive, is not welcome, especially when directed to people who work in service whose job it is to converse with you. And especially coming from a six foot four, fifty year old man who played football in college (outside lineman).
I’m not suggesting we throw caution to the wind and enter conversations with the fervor and gall of a straight man, but I’d argue we can be a little less careful.
When I forced myself to do standup, I had an impression of how it looks when men check women out (a long, drooling scan down the body) versus how queer people tend to check someone out (sporadic, quick glances that you could easily miss or pass off as ordinary). We are socialized to read unspoken, social cues. So it makes sense that we take the “invisible no” (she says with risk of using pseudo-intellectual speech) in contexts where we see the other person not having a clear and easy out.
A self proclaimed “feminist dating coach” whose work I admire, Lily Womble, instructs her clients to “make the first move one hundred percent of the time.” Her addendum, which I find the most interesting, is to give the person you’re approaching a clear “out.” For example, one could provide an out in the form of “I’ll let you get back to your drink,” giving the receiver the option to say “No, please don’t! You’re so hot!” (Or something like that. I don’t know. That’s how they usually respond to me.)
Of course, this advice is geared towards fishing for a longer term connection than an afternoon coffee co-worker. But the ethos still applies.
My question is: When we’re sitting beside one another for an entire afternoon, why are we pretending not to see one another? Why are we not acknowledging a sneeze? Or a need for the wifi password? The most common embrace I see shared between strangers is that of: “can you watch my stuff while I use the restroom?” Which is a great start. It makes the asked feel like they were the most clean, responsible adult in the room. If we were a little less careful with one another we could get one step closer to the dream: the modern day equivalent of the “water cooler chat.”
