Eating Alone at Cafe Presse

Today I ate alone at Cafe Presse. Alone. Just me and the steak and fries. And my belly. And ketchup. Food tastes less interesting when you eat it alone. The whole experience is just less fun. You want to talk to someone but there's no one there. So you play a game on your cell phone, thinking it will be relaxing. Except the cell phone game is actually very involving, and emotionally taxing. There are these balls, and they have to hit other balls so that they can explode. It sounds fun, but it's actually tedious and a chore. But you do it the same reason heroin addicts take shots of heroin: because it's something to do and it's a nasty habit.

At the table next to you, a dude wearing a sweatshirt and his friend are talking about the differences between Seattle and Portland. The consensus is that Portland is less big and thus "less classy" or something. I'm not just whipping out that word "classy" and using it to fill in a missing hole in the conversation I didn't quite overhear, it was something to the affect of "Seattle is bigger and thus has more classy places." Although they could have just been saying that because they were sitting in a classy restaurant and you always ascribe a characteristic to a city based on the place where you are when you're having that conversation. I've never complained about Seattle's lack of friendliness when I'm at a party with people I love, but when I'm in a coffee shop alone on Facebook looking at faces of people I don't care about just to pass the time, yeah, sure, I'll tell you Seattle sucks socially if you sit next to me and strike up a conversation. Then I'll tell you that I miss South Africa, and feel self-conscious about how college I am; not loving America and all.

The statement about Seattle sucking socially is met with different responses. I take that back. Different responses sounds like some people are negative in response and some people are positive in response. This is untrue. People are absolutely positively uniformly agreeing when you say Seattle sucks socially. This is actually the best way of starting a conversation with someone in Seattle: tell them you like the trees but you wish you could break down that "barrier" with people. Then show some sort of emotion to prove that you're not like the rest of Seattle. Gasp when they say something shocking or laugh at nothing in particular. This will prove to people that you are capable of breaking out of demographic trends, that you are crazy like the only people who have any fun around here (the Broadway homeless), that you are different and thus, your suffering is unique and based upon the fact that you're just not showing your personality because the people around you aren't worthy of your personality because you're just that fucking amazing.

But the statement about Seattle people having "barriers" isn't uniformly true, I don't think. I don't think people in Seattle really have "barriers." I think I probably just meet the only socially incapable people in Seattle who like to complain about how hard it is to make friends because there's actually something socially wrong with them.

Anyway, so back to the conversation this couple is having. The dude says he went to a high school called "Brookline" or something and the girl says "wow" and I think, well, that's weird because people in Seattle don't usually say "wow" about high schools. So I guess he's from somewhere else, where wows are expected after you state your high school, because if people don't say wow they'll be looked down on as the sort of person who doesn't read the US News and World Report's Annual Listing of High Schools, and thus aren't smart, and thus don't have smart friends, and thus probably won't amount to anything in the world, and thus are a life drainer people want to stay very very far away from (especially if they read books like the Secret).

But I hide my pain and play my cell phone game. I am suddenly, acutely aware of the fact that I am now Seattle because they are so close to me, and looking around and seeing the city through the eyes of people who just arrived here. I'm the dude playing the game on my cell phone, like a social retard, while he waits for his food to arrive. I am Seattle. I am retarded.

The waitress comes back for her mandatory "check in" and asks how the food is, and I lie and say it's delicious even though it's too rare because I don't want the hassle of sending food back. I wonder to myself if the waitress says things like "hun" in her daily life or if "hun" is used for affect here. It's such a warm older woman word and she looks like she's 15. If she's using the word for affect, I deem the restaurant to be inhospitable for people who have personalities. I assume they have some course on waitressing tips where they tell all the waitresses how to use words that are folksy. Even though this restaurant would never do that, the thought crosses my brain.

Eventually, I am given a box for all my food that I will probably put in my fridge and then throw out three days later without eating any of it. It's just a ritual I like to feel a part of. To not ask for a box is admitting you don't like the food and are completely comfortable with the image of some chef shoveling it into a trash can while crying, and then killing himself all because of you. So you ask for the food in a fucking box, because you're a fucking human.

Walking out of the restaurant is uncomfortable because you are suddenly made aware again of the fact that you are completely alone. If you're emotionally healthy you probably have the feeling "man, I am an adult having fun being emotionally healthy and getting to know myself. good. I just love to eat alone and listen to my pretty shiny thoughts" and if you are not emotionally healthy you probably have the feeling "I am fat. I also don't like people. My head hurts. My car is filled with junk I don't take out because I am lazy. I am going to go write in my blog now about being fat and not liking people. Maybe I will also WebMD 'Depression' just for fun."

You walk to your car. It is a foreign car you bought because it is reliable. It's so Seattle. It's fucking forest green. You left that little sticker on the window that says you parked it for such and such hours. You put your key in the ignition and it revs up. You and the car have a weird relationship. You're just not ready to really tell it what to do. You try to coax it instead, so you drive like an eighty year old man. You think; well, I'm Jewish. Somehow this is all okay. Larry David has done worse. Shalom Auslander has said worse. David Rackoff is a mess, and Gary Shteyngart must have had some social problems in his 20s. Each of these men were probably grumpy old farts trapped in teenage bodies. They probably didn't have a good relationship with anyone until they had a good relationship with a kind, warm editor who told them all their ideas were fucking brilliant. So the car thing is okay, it's okay. You can drive like an eighty year old man. You can do that.