Together Alone

So my wife and I have our own little book club, we get together once a week to discuss the sections that we agreed to read during the week usually at our favorite little coffee shop in Ventura.  Since we were in Arizona this week we couldn’t meet at our usual place so we found a local coffee shop near where we were staying to discuss our latest read.  Below is an image of what we found after we ordered our coffee and settled into a small table in the corner:

coffee in scottsdale

It dawned on us slowly, something was odd, not the crowds or the type of people gathered there but the uncomfortable silence of the place.  It was fairly full of customers sitting at tables, doing work or studying or who-knows-what but you could have heard a pin drop.  Our quiet little conversation in the corner felt like we were shouting to the whole place.

The whole thing was sort of eerie, we came in and had a conversation about a great book and drank our coffee and headed out without even being noticed by anyone in the cafe.  Though they were all gathered together in this place they were completely alone, a million miles away from those sitting right next to them.  Strange, it almost makes you miss those loud inappropriate cell phone conversations of times gone by, almost.