Seating Disorders

Just as my eyes were about to close on the Sunday magazine section, my son, less than an hour off the plane from New York, came in to suggest we go to Starbucks and write together. Well the last thing I felt like doing was dragging myself off the couch, but I would prop my eyelids open with toothpicks if necessary rather than pass up such an offer.

To make the ecstasy of the moment complete, we invited my daughter along to do her homework, and she accepted. On the way to Starbucks, my daughter and I filled my son in on the changes he should expect in our local Starbucks, which now literally percolates with both crowds and coffee at any hour. We explained the problematic seating, which requires random strangers to -- gasp -- share a table when all the loner chairs are taken.

My son launched into a rant about deep dark suburbia (not in those words, of course), having become accustomed to the complete absence of personal space afforded by New York City. He was trying to remember the last time he sat alone, even when he was alone. So we assured him that we, personally, had no objection to sitting with random strangers; it's just that it's not the kind of thing people do around these parts.

The truth is, I have more than a few Starbucks chums. We don't necessarily squish together on a couch, but we greet each other happily and often have satisfying, albeit brief, conversations. Yes, my loyal blog fans who chastised me yesterday about the pointlessness of cyber dating (for me anyway) will not be all that surprised to learn that I have never met anyone on line who measures up to any of my coffee house buddies. It's all somewhat "virtual," if you're thinking in terms of relationships, but there certainly is something a bit more gratifying about connecting with someone in the flesh rather than because of some arbitrary moment caught in a camera lens.

The gentleman I met with last night -- the one who absolutely does not want a relationship and is still in love with his wife -- told me I didn't really look like my picture. I must have appeared horrified, but he explained he meant it in a completely neutral way. Pictures don't tend to capture a person; I decided not to take his comment as either an insult or a compliment. (We had a perfectly nice time by the way; it was lovely being with someone who has as little interest in making any attachments as I do. And being home before eight.)

My kids and I positioned ourselves at one end of a long table, just in case any random strangers needed to sit. A group of four high school boys studying for a test claimed the other end, being careful to leave a respectful space between "us" and "them." Aside from the nasty little habit one of them had of vibrating his leg against the table leg, the experience wasn't all that threatening or unpleasant.

Life in the big city, right here in deep, dark suburbia.