I'd Like to Order a Real Conversation, Please!

I visited a restaurant, Lou Mitchells, for the first time today. This restaurant is located in the west loop, so I automatically assumed it would not be busy on a Sunday morning. But it was PACKED. You could be seated in either booths, or long, communal tables. The introvert in me screamed “please don’t sit me at a communal table,” to the lady seating us. Low and behold, my friend and I were sat across from each other at a communal table.

I sucked it up and tried to talk quietly so that no one could hear what I was saying. I kept my elbows off the table not to show great manners, but so as to not enter within the space of the two people next to me.

Once our food came, I began to settle into the crammed, loud and no-personal-space atmosphere. But then an amazing thing happened. My friend started to talk to a stranger when he overheard this stranger mention nuclear submarines. My friend interrupted this stranger to say he once studied nuclear engineering and then they both continued to talk about everything nuclear for about 10 minutes!

What struck me was this – here were these two strangers who were randomly assigned to sit next to each other talking and communicating without the help of an electronic device. Just like the olden days! I am rarely in situations anymore where strangers talk to each other, unless it is via some sort of computer screen. So as my friend and this stranger talked, I smiled to myself that a real life connection was made. And I also silently giggled to myself about how a conversation about nuclear submarines is not something you could summarize in a 140 character tweet. 

To top it all off, as we walked away from Lou Mitchells, this stranger drove by in his car, rolled down the window and told us to “have a great day.” Although you could write that in a tweet, hearing it come from someone who I will never see again and from someone who genuinely meant what he said made me want to throw away my phone forever!