June 20th, 2008
I Want to Sit in a Cafe with Friends and Feed Myself on Convivial Conversation
Three months back, I was someone who tried to never eat alone — at least three times in a week, I would either eat out, or invite someone home for ordered pizza/ home-made pasta and a shared bottle of wine.
In the last three months, I haven’t been inside a restaurant even once, I have entered a coffee shop only to use the washrooms, and the one time I ordered pizza home, it resulted in an upset stomach in a classic cautionary tale turn of events. In the beginning, I compensated by inviting my friends over more often, but now that my wine collection has run dry, and my stock of munchies is over, even throwing a house party isn’t as much fun anymore. As a result, instead of socializing thrice a week, I’m meeting my friends once in three weeks. In fact, I think it has been more than a month since I spent any time with my best friends Kanishka and Avantika.
In the spirit of scientific curiosity, I took away my social context, knowing fully well that —
unless you invent new social contexts, not only dating, even meeting friends may become a problem.
I shouldn’t be surprised, then, that I feel as if I’m living in a social vacuum.
I’m not at all surprised, by the way, that I could immediately identify with this excerpt from page 58-59 of Judith Levine’s ‘Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping’ –
For vicarious pleasure, or perhaps in anticipation of next year, I clip restaurant reviews and take them out from time to time to reread, returning like a regular to my favorite spots.
Not patronizing cafes, bars, or restaurants has made social life, and especially business life, awkward.
But reading the reviews, I realize that I’m forfeiting more than convenience. I’m losing conviviality and communion, which is a lubricant for deal-making both professional and personal. Without the glass of wine or cup of coffee, the meeting — and its participants — can’t help but be all business.
The cafe is a uniquely urban amenity, offering a uniquely urban pleasure: to work, eat, read, daydream, or observe others doing the same, unknown but seen, private in public. They city allows anonymous intimacies of every intensity — from sidewalk glances to barroom confessions to backroom sex… I find myself yearning for the time I’ll again sit at a side table and sip, consuming cool intimacies.
In fact, I don’t even want the coffee. All I want is to sit in a cafe, on a side table, with two friends or three, and feed myself on convivial conversation.
What stops you? Go ahead.
Just shows you aint Bong! we have something called “adda”…no frills , thrill attached.
@Rajesh: Well, I think I will. Post coming up on the learning form the first three months of the experiment and the tweaks in my ten commandments.
@Ratz: Well, in a world where we all live in different cities, or in parts of the same city that seem as far as different cities, the only “adda” that works is an online “adda”. Remember our little chain-mailing experiment?
[…] since I have started my off consumption experiment, my social life has dramatically changed — Three months back, I was someone who tried to never eat […]