The Art of Communal Solitude

I am currently partaking in what has become a ritual in today's age. I am sitting, laptop open, iced caramel machiatto in hand, right by the window in a Starbucks. I had what qualifies for a bad day yesterday, and I decided I just wanted to be alone for a while. Now, I live in an apartment all by myself where I have all the things I need (including coffee, specifically from Starbucks), and yet, I got dressed up, left my very very *very* comfy bed, took two buses, and voila! Here I am sipping a 5 dollar brew overlooking an exceedingly busy street.

So what is it that brought me, and another 20 odd humans, here, in the middle of the day? Free time? Everybody, me including, are busy typing away on their laptops or reading books and such. Coffee? I've been sitting here for about an hour and a half, my drinks reached the point of being mostly water, and this is true for the 8 people in my field of vision. The need to get work done? As far as I can see, three people are on farmville, two are intently staring out the window, two are on the phone, and I am reading John Mayer's twitter page.

Carrie Bradshaw once hypothesized that all the people sitting in Starbucks were not being pretentious, they were all people mid-fight. Wise words, true, but I have a different hypothesis. The reason we gravitate towards places that are inherently crowded even when we are looking to be left alone is because it's no fun to be left alone, alone.

Think about it. I wanted to not have to deal with anybody, and where did I land up? One of the most popular caffeine peddlers right next to campus during lunch. That, in itself, is an oxymoron if there ever was one. However, here I am. Because while I want to be alone, I don't want to avoid humanity. And even if I did, as I successfully am doing now, it's a subconscious desire to almost never want to be completely alone.

This, and I am copyrighting this, is the art of communal solitude. We all wanted to be alone, whether to finish a paper, read a book, harvest stuff on farmville or stalk celebrities on twitter, we all wanted to be alone. So we all came together, overpaid for a cup of coffee, sat down in the leather couches, plugged in our headphones, and commenced being completely alone, together.

Communal Solitude.

(If they ever sell out, Starbucks should definitely factor this in as a part of their intangibles. Yay for paying attention in accounting)