The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café | Hacker News Reader

The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café

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802 pointsmooreds434 comments

Too many negative comments here. This is just someone discovering something new and sharing it very excitedly.

Almost 6-7 years ago, I read about a 30min challenge to sit upright without doing anything in a chair challenge. That changed how I think about distractions. If I had written about it, there surely will be people who would just like here say... What is so crazy about it? I do that all the time...

To me, this post is someone's joy and curiosity shared through a well written piece. Everybody discover certain things at different stages of their lives. What's so bad about that?

Was able to bring a smile on my face. A good post. :)

Stillness isn't only enjoyable (for some), it's incredibly valuable. Stoicism and Buddhism both talk a lot about it and they're not the only ones. I make a point of sitting comfortably and doing nothing with no stimuli for 5-10 minutes every morning.

Inevitably when you're still with no distractions, your subconscious starts surfacing various thoughts. There is a random element to what pops into your head, but there will also be patterns. Just sitting there and observing, and maybe asking yourself a few questions about what emerges, is an incredible way to become aware of your emotional state, stay grounded to your goals, and remember what truly matters to you. This exercise frequently reorders my plans for the rest of the day.

There's also value in stillness when you're in public or with other people. Just shutting up and taking in your surroundings for 30-60 seconds is kind of like a mini superpower, you start noticing little things that other people don't see. Many of the little decisions you make automatically throughout the day get better if you just, y'know, sit there and think about them quietly for 1 minute. You end up going to a better restaurant, or remembering to call a loved one, because you simply took a moment to just pause and reflect.

It's the best thing in the world really. All this mindfulness stuff has profound benefits.

A great exercise while being still is to put your attention to various parts of your body: what does the air smell like? What do you hear? How does the chair under your butt and the ground under your feet feel like? Try not to think too much, let the thoughts come and go like cars on a motorway, but observe closely in and around you.

My ADHD brain recoils at the thought of this, which probably means I would benefit even more from doing so.

Agree. And another way in Hinduism is - mantras. They kind of reset you brain. Saying them kind of helps you observe everything around you with ease. Suddenly, you connect with your body and surroundings. It helps you especially when stressed and anxious situations. I don't know the word in English, but it makes you achieve ekagrutha. My fam says the word is concentration. But not sure if it is the exact translation.

And you have the added benefit being to able to pick the god of your choice that resonates with you and recite their mantras.

Additionally, neuroscience has some interesting visuals on when happens in the brain when you repeatedly have a thought, true or not.

I do this in the sauna at my gym. 30 minutes with no talking, no phones, no screens. Just your own thoughts, and sweat.

Far more effective for me personally is walking. No headphones, somewhere fairly quiet.

Walking in green spaces, specifically, has been shown to have positive effects on one's wellbeing. I personally have always noticed a difference.

There's an argument to be made that what alcohol achieves, and what meditation aims to achieve (and often fails) is the same thing: disengaging the prefrontal cortex. Once our basic needs are met, our higher brain functions can become an impediment to happiness, since they have neither a shut off switch nor a goal threshold -- it is insatiable, and will continue to analyze threats and manufacture problems to solve.

I am not sure I would consider those two things substitutable goods but I do advocate for social recreational use of alcohol for this reason, and at a certain point in life a creed along the lines of "if you don't practice mindfulness, go drink" probably moved me a lot farther forward than most people would give it credit for.

It’s always a personal choice, but I wouldn’t equate the two in any way because alcohol is a neurotoxin, carcinogen and doesn’t scale or compound the more it’s practiced.

It doesn’t mean I might not have a drink, but I’m aware it’s triggers a “get the poison out” response from my body.

Disengaging the prefrontal cortex is one thing, lowering the inhibitions and increasing emotional volatility in the rest of the brain is hugely different.

Those things can vary between people.

Understanding we chan shift our default mode network is critical.

Meditation actually increased the connection between areas like the amygdala and prefrontal cortex allowing you to have greater calm, focus while at peace minus the racing thoughts and emotions.

Having an overdeveloped amygdala is fairly common resulting in an under developed prefrontal cortex.

Luckily neuroscience is showing the past few years that neuroplasticity is available to everyone to continue improving for their entire life.

> Too many negative comments here.

I wonder if the author’s use of “you” rubbed some people the wrong way: “You are alone and powerless. You encounter a deep challenge,” “When you let your thoughts wander, they take you on a journey you’ll never think possible,” etc.

The pronoun seems intended to refer to the author’s own experiences, but I can see why some readers might think it refers to them. I had a bit of a negative reaction to those “you”s myself, as I experience cafés very differently from the author.

I have a similar negative reaction to op-ed articles that use “we” to refer to some sort of personified zeitgeist. From some essays currently appearing in the Opinion section of the New York Times:

“We are all in a constant state of grief, even though we don’t always admit it.”

“But we spend much of our lives in weaker friendship markets, where people are open to conversation, but not connection.”

“Over the past six decades or so, we chose autonomy, and as a result, we have been on a collective journey from autonomy to achievement to anxiety.”

Oh, this one is difficult. I vacillated a lot in my early writing between I, we, and you.

Too many "I" sounds self-fixated and irrelevant for the reader. "You" is way too presumptive, unless addressing a specific person or specific group with actual evidence. "We" can also read as too presumptive, but I feel like it works in the case of processes the reader could volunteer to be part of. However, it must not be used to project emotions or experiences onto the reader.

For now, I've personally settled on "we" for most things (because the reader could hypothetically choose to follow along actively), but switching into "I" if I need to discuss something negative or a failing of my own. In other words, I would never project "a constant state of grief" on my readers – that I can only attribute to myself.

When I refer to something that cannot be experienced by myself, only by my readership (e.g. because it happens only to people who do not know where the article is going), I prefer "the reader" over "you", because while it might be true for the median reader, it might not be true for each and every individual reading.

I'm glad someone else also cares about this! I don't find it discussed very much.

-----

Here's a decent example of what I mean: https://entropicthoughts.com/packaging-perl-and-shell-for-ni...

(1) It starts out with "I" having trouble packaging – my readers are generally more intelligent and experienced than I am, so I won't assume they have the same trouble.

(2) Then we go into my experience, but phrased in a way where the reader could hypothetically follow along. Thus, I ask the reader to imagine "we" have a Perl script.

(3) Somewhere in the middle, the article refers to something that might be noticed by "the very attentive reader". I do not expect everyone to, not even the median reader, but I realise some readers might.

(4) The appendix contains a note in case "you" are very curious, because here I do address each and every reader individually.

Technical writing should be third person passive, so forget all those pesky pronouns.

Without knowing the author, I wonder if that's a natural construct in their native language. As I've moved from Canada, I find myself consciously having to check to see if I've written "I", or "one", given that my local language, places a preferred conjugation in the you imperative.

Coincidentally, Quebec uses "we" a lot in their ads, especially as a way to say "this is how things ought to be done". For example, "this December, we vote".

German also has "man" which almost directly translates to "one" (the pronoun).

Personally I found the writing style unpleasant, because people on LinkedIn write the same way. I associate it to a specific kind of low-value content.

In this case, the use of "we" is also funny, because the opening sentence is such an unusual take.

Trying to sit still for 30 min without any stimulation at all (no talking, watching, reading) sounds like torture to me.

It can be at first until you get used to it. You can observe your surroundings, make up stories about what is happening. Ask yourself questions. Listen to yourself.

This is a bit like excercise. When you first start, 30 minutes of exercise can be torture as your is out of shape and not used to the effort. Keep doing it and it feels better and you feel better.

Work on becoming a source of thoughts rather than a consumer of thoughts.

> You can observe your surroundings, make up stories about what is happening.

I had to sit still a lot as a child, since I wasn't allowed to have friends or go anywhere. I read a lot, but a lot of the time I was to tired or bored to read, so I'd just defocus my eyes, and disappear into my imagination. It would look like I'm reading, so I wouldn't get punished. In hindsight I'm not sure it's terribly healthy, as I now find it impossible to put up with boring people (which is basically everybody who has time to sit around chatting, almost by definition).

People talk about this with exercise and I’ve never understood it. As someone who has exercised continuously for years - it has never gotten better.

Which, to me, makes sense because you’re supposed to always be pushing yourself. You’re not supposed to ever feel comfortable or feel better from it. You should always feel shitty because if it doesn’t hurt then you’re probably not making optimal development.

The only thing I ever “feel” good about is purely a mental thing. Eg I hit a new PR (progress), didn’t skip a lift (perseverance), or whatever. The act of exercising itself is always painful and it’s why I always dread it.

I end up being consumed by depressive thoughts and lots of body scanning. I hate it.

So… stimulate yourself?

> Work on becoming a source of thoughts rather than a consumer of thoughts.

This is the classic “sounds deep but actually means nothing” vague statement that’s only meant to massage one’s ego and try to reenforce an unsubstantiated idea in a faux-philosophical way.

You are always “sourcing” thoughts even when “consuming”.

Being able to sit still, quietly without having to stimulate oneself is, by all means, exactly that: avoid stimulating oneself. Looking around and trying to come up with small stimulations based on your surrounding is merely replacing one object (say, your phone) with another.

Part of my job, is that I design protocols to help young children lie in MRI scanners for a living. We have all sorts of techniques to help with this.

However, for each new scanning protocol, I like to have had it myself - so I know what the children go through. And, at times lying inside a MRI scanner, detached from the world, with only the noise of the scanner (very reduced with our new noise cancelling headphones), is almost meditative, and a welcome escape from the constant connection and pressures of being immediately available at work. Sounds like the writer achieves something similar in the coffee shop.

This reminds me: I experience a similar "welcome escape" sensation when I'm hospitalized. My work responsibilities are manifold and tend to intrude into my thoughts even when I'm at leisure. But when I'm in the hospital, there seem to be some sort of physical and psychological clean break. Hard to describe.

I think it depends on what counts as doing nothing. Every time I cut my hair, I sit in a chair for ~30minutes silently without doing anything. My barber knows I don't like small talk so he just cuts my hair and that's it, there is no conversation.

I would say it is very enjoyable 30 minutes every time I do it. I don't think anyone would describe that kind of experience as hard to do?

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." - Blaise Pascal

I try and think about this often.

It is. I did somewhere around ~10mins or something in my first try. Which I was told is very high for a first attempt. But it is indeed difficult. Like @dymk said, you work your way up.

Also, a lot of folks think it's easy to do. Until you try it, that is.

I also remember reading somewhere around the lines of handling the chaos in your-self. Or controlling the chaos within yourself.

And always thought this exercise showed what that is about. (Sorry, forgot the expression. Been a while. It's definitely more nicely put than the above.)

>"Trying to sit still for 30 min without any stimulation at all (no talking, watching, reading) sounds like torture to me"

I've done more than that. Summer time I often swim in open water up to 2 hour at once as one of the ways to stay fit. Obviously it becomes routine and not very entertaining. So I usually doing some high level software design work in my mind at this point, exploring some concepts, thinking business ideas etc. etc. So my body does monotonous work of not very high intensity and my brain is busy with everything else. Not board at all.

I once spent 1.5 hour standing in a church listening to a priest for more than an hour (funeral). Same thing I mentally solved the problem why some piece of my code did not work.

Without this ability I would go nuts. My brain always has to be busy with something. It is like a drug for me.

I felt that for much of my life. Time without stimulation was, if not scary, at least a bit panic inducing. Learning to sit without stimulation, without any distractions from my worries, led to being able to realize that "hey, I'm OK, I don't even need those worries." Which led to handling the underlying pressures and stresses MUCH better, without panic, without stress, with a full clear mind. I could apply my full intellect to things that before were hard to deal with. It felt like a super power when I first started practicing sitting.

It starts like that. Work up to 30 minutes, start with 5. The mind has an uncanny ability to entertain itself when it’s bored but paying attention.

>Trying to sit still for 30 min without any stimulation at all (no talking, watching, reading) sounds like torture to me.

Those of us over 40 have already had plenty of this in our lives, it used to be such a common part of life! Waiting for appointments, waiting for the bus, etc. before smartphones. My first job had two hours between lunch and dinner service. I only had about 15 minutes of work during that time, so it was hour plus of almost entirely idle time every shift.

Then dont sit still for 30 mins - try doing it for 3 minutes at first. If you feel like it, repeat the next day with either the same or longer length. Or dont do it at all. If you do - think of it as a kind of a meditation, without the extra steps. Some isolation from sensory stimulation is good for your brain - there is growing evidence we are all over exposed to attention-robbing mechanisms of the digital world.

If nothing else, having to go to church every Sunday in my youth taught be to be able to sit still while bored off my brain for an hour a week.

Some people just call this "meditation".

I thought it was too, but when my daughter was born she had trouble regulating her temperature so I had to stay with her while she was under the warmer for an hour, then another hour swaddled in my arms. They didn't allow phones, so I got to spend two hours with her, no distraction. The time passed surprisingly quickly. I sang to her, I told her stories from my head.

Nowadays when I'm feeding her or napping her I admittedly do have a phone behind her head, but I'll always cherish those two hours where it was just us two.

My therapist used to say: this means you must do it for 40 minutes

>People Prefer Electric Shocks to Being Alone With Their Thoughts

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/people-pr...

When I was younger I used to visit a local zendo, and I think the meditation sessions were 40 minutes. It's definitely an experience. Very easy to fall asleep without external distractions. The idea was to just learn to concentrate on bodily sensations, skin, breathing, sound.

Sounds like meditation to me.

Try rawdogging a train ride or short flight, and do nothing but take in the view. You might fool your body into accepting this state by actually doing something, but not really doing something.

Solitude and once’s own company once learned is bliss.

The mind finds entirely new areas of stimulation when it’s not being distracted or purely having sensory experiences.

That is because the monkey mind is trying to create a narrative where none exists in the moment.

Enduring boredom is the antithesis of mindless doomscrolling.

Sounds like the morning standup for most people.

A cafe near me specializes in pu-erh tea, and has a strict 'no electronic devices' policy. Very conducive to that sort of sitting challenge, or meditative practices in general.

When feeling too busy, I always make time to go to a sit at my local Vipassana center, spending an hour sitting actually frees up so much more time in my life that it's well worth it. Gandhi definitely had it right when he said "I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one"

Thanks for the perspective. I was looking for it in the comments.

The thing with a café is. OK, it exists. But it just isn't for me. I like being on my own, and you don't go to a public place for that. I got coffee at home (not as good as in a half decent café). If I really do need coffee on the go it is while travelling, and then I don't sit inside (no, not on a crowdy terrace either).

I could write you a post about the the unbearable joy of listening to hypnotic music while on a train or bus ride.

I could write a post about sitting stoned in a squat with everyone going to bed slowly but surely, and this girl still playing her guitar smiling friendly at me, and eventually guiding me to a place where I could sleep. Cause at this point, I had no clue where to go.

But in the end, it boils down to mindfulness and meditation.

I've done some sitting still and doing nothing. It's a deep subject. There's like a thousand things going on right now and you're reacting to all of them. And that reaction is reality.

Solitude and stillness unlocks a completely different side of creativity and insight.

Too many folks scroll right past the opportunities.

When you sit in a café, even when you do nothing as the author said, you are still not alone because you are visually (looking at her, for example) and audibly (listening to them, for example) active. Like in any other public space, you are passively interacting with others, hence you are not "sitting alone".

> a 30min challenge to sit upright without doing anything in a chair challenge

Quakers call this "silent meeting."

For those that don’t know, the Quakers are like Zen Buddhism met radical Protestant Christians in the 1600s. There is no creed, no minister/priest/leader.

We sit together quietly for 60 minutes. If someone feels inspired, they stand up and speak. Then they sit down and the Meeting continues in silence. Some Meetings are silent from start to finish; others have speakers the whole time.

While there is no creed, people often speak about truth, equality, peace, and simplicity. I found it when looking for a belief system to pass on to my kids, should I have some.

If you’re curious, try it some Sunday. It’s an interesting experience.

> Too many negative comments here.

On this post specifically or HN on the whole? ;)

I wonder how many of them have read xkcd's Ten Thousand.

> Too many negative comments here. This is just someone discovering something new and sharing it very excitedly.

Some of the negativity is because many people out there were used to this slower way of living only for capitalist techbros to optimize every waking moment everything and hasten the rat race.

So now the only people who can sit idly at a cafe would be those who've already have a few million in the bank. It's similar to the CEO goes to a yoga retreat in Bali (or Burning Man) trope to rediscover being part of society.

I have 500€ in my bank account, 3k debt and 30 years of work left ahead of me and I take a lot of idle time in cafes or trains or the park. I don't see the issue.

The sooner one realizes that working hard isn't the key to life the sooner one realizes you'll have plenty more time. If you get something out of working hard, like joy, sure go ahead. But dont lie to yourself and think that working hard will actually ever pay off.

I do not earn enough to ever afford a house without going into debt for the rest of my life. As long as I can afford a cheap place, one new book a month and a hot shower in the morning I am content with never owning anything. As thats the world all the "hard working" people shoved us into.

Sitting with your own thoughts is privileged now? Interesting. I'll keep this in mind until there is seven digits in my bank account.

Where do you live? I've travelled quite a bit and cafes and pubs are constantly filled with regular folks enjoying an idle moment. Why would so many cafes exist if only that tiny demographic patronised them?

Capitalist techbros didn't force anyone to do anything. You need to take responsibility for your own life.

I used to work in investment banking in the city of London and later in Canary Wharf. I loved working in the city as it was a beautiful old place, people were very social and having 2-3 hour boozy lunches with someone who you might do business with one day wasn't a rarity (mind you, I moved out before covid, I understand things have changed quite a bit).

Then I switched jobs and ended up in Canary Wharf. For those who don't know it, Canary Wharf is a newly built finance district in the London Docklands. If you've been to Singapore, Dubai, La Defense in Paris or Songdo in Korea, you know the kind of place. Everything is clean, new, modern. Everything has 90 degree angles. Everything has cameras, security guards and cleaning stuff. What it doesn't have is any resemblance of a real city, any organicity or soul.

I hated it. Every morning I saw the streams of suite dressed worker drones pouring from the tube directly into their office towers (Canary Wharf has a huge underground shopping mall/railway station that allows you to go from the subway directly into your office without ever seeing the sun).

I was unhappy. So I did similar things to the OP. I got up earlier and walked there. (I lived in Mile End). It was a nice walk along the canal for a while and then a not so nice walk through smog and traffic, but I didn't mind. I took my lunch outside on the remaining docks. And finally, I got up so early that I arrived an hour before work began.

I spent this hour in a Cafe. Alone. Having breakfast. I loved this hour. I sat there, as the only one not rushing in, getting their "strong capo", beeping their card against the reader and rushing out. I observed the grey and black dressed stream of people. I day dreamed.

It helped - for a while. It was a band aid before I left London all together and moved to Berlin. But most of all, it is a uniquely calm and joyful experience. It decelerates you. The boheme in Paris or Prague has long figured this out. Sit in a cafe. Enjoy a coffee or a glass of wine. Look at people. Daydream. Reflect, be enough - there's a lot to it.

You should do more writing! I really enjoyed this and the way you write!

Yes, sir, blog away, we need your wisdom.

Another +1. You have a really nice writing style!

Singapore to a tea. Spooky that I had a similar path, Sydney -> HK -> New York -> Singapore. Crescendo-ing up to New York, then off a cliff into a full blow school-like world (but great trains).

I'm starting to think I'm the only person in the world who loves La Défense.

I didn’t quite understand why sitting alone in a café makes you a weirdo (is it an American thing?), but the piece was very well written. We all should learn how to be without electronics for every now and then, accompanied only our thoughts. It is good for the soul.

I think the important part is leaving your phone and other devices home. Be alone, without even a possibility of connecting (apart from the old-fashione way of talking to an actual human being). People used to do this y’know? Back then.

> I think the important part is leaving your phone and other devices home.

The annoying part is that this becomes increasingly difficult to impossible. For example, I can't use public transport without my phone anymore, because my ticket is bound to my phone and the provider does not issue paper tickets or smartcards anymore.

Less severe but equally frustrating, many restaurants choose to use QR codes for menus rather than printing them onto a sheet of paper or writing them to the wall.

I love leaving my phone behind, primarily because I am in the "we're entertaining ourselves to death" crowd considering I essentially grew up with mobile phones already. But our environment is increasingly build on the assumption that we carry a smartphone with us at any given time.

Right, the real test is knowing your device is tucked in the pocket and completely ignoring it. At first it might be hard, but completely doable. Before I start my drive I put my non-peered-to-vehicle phone in my pocket, and it ceases to exist while I drive. Similarly it can be done in any other situation; in this case, a coffee shop.

There is no need to leave it behind, just having the right usage control over it would suffice.

I've avoided the restaurant-QR-code deal so far. They don't have a menu I can read? I walk out.

> our environment is increasingly build on the assumption that we carry a smartphone with us at any given time.

This is so true! Surprised how many commenters are saying "just have self control" etc - a phone is close to essential for a lot of services in a city.

I'd be super interested in tips people have to avoid the psychological impact phones have when they do have to take them with them. A lot of phones have "relax" or "do not disturb" modes - curious if that actually works for anyone?

Get two phones. One for carrying around, lock it down 100% with parental controls against all distractions. The other one unlocked.

Parental controls are underrated.

It's just a matter of developing some self control. Be conscious about when you really need your phone (using it to pay or as your ticket) vs using is to pass time (doom scrolling X or HN)

If QR codes for menus just ask at the counter.

Ours do the same but I just ask and are normally happy to talk. Personally I think the staff enjoy it as they get a few minutes of talk time rather than rush rush next order.

I fairly often go out with just my Garmin watch and an ereader (Boox 6”, which is just about pocketable).

I can sync music to it and use it for contactless payments, which is just about enough.

It’s possible to do a bit more but it’s more basic than an Apple Watch as a smartphone alternative (but much better for everything I want it for), and as I mostly use it for sports tracking and being phoneless, I haven’t set any other apps up.

It's important to challenge that assumption.

You don't have to leave your phone at home to be free of distractions. You can restrict your phone instead. I'm just a happy user, see techlockdown.com.

Their marketing is geared towards the p*rnography addiction crowd but from my own experience, it works equally well for those easily distracted by screens (I have ADHD).

Surely you can turn your phone off when you get to the cafe, and leave it off for half an hour?

I can't open the exterior doors of my apartment without an app (despite having an option for RFID dongles. they heavily advise against it)

At least I need my apple watch with cellular enabled so I can dial myself in.

I don't see any reason you need to continue using your phone once boarded. But yes parting the home without is impractical.

with a modicum of self control, you can turn off your phone when it's not needed.

I often would go to local coffee shops with a book and journal. Leaving a device at home has nothing to do with it.

One of the reasons I don't see much value-added from meditation is that it seems like a ritualistic wrapper around something I already do and value: clearing one's head, quiet time without consuming visual stimulus and without brooding. We are prone to bombarding ourselves constantly and wonder why we're fatigued partway through the day.

I like to reserve the "thinking" component to journaling time, as that seems to help organize thoughts. Or else, do it while walking.

From the blog

>It’s contradictory to sit alone in a café. It’s against the reason cafés exist.

I had the same feeling as you. Why is it weird to do something alone ? - and like you I thought this must be an American thing. Mostly, because stuff like "eating out alone" or "going to the movies alone" was describe as weird by American authors before.

Sure, it's close to impossible to not "auto-socialize", when you are alone. It's one of the reason I like to do things alone. Either being a regular to the cafe/restaurant host or you get into contact with other people,

> why sitting alone in a café makes you a weirdo

It doesn't. That was pure projection on the author's part.

It's really just people in the suburbs and smaller cities. Doing things alone is completely normal in a city like Chicago or NY.

It's hard to put a finger on, but I do think it only "works" in a locale where you have a certain degree of anonymity, where it makes sense. Chicken egg for sure. But yeah, categorically, you can't really do city activities in the burbs, the feel isn't right.

I enjoyed the post as a whole, there’s joy in someone discovering and sharing pleasure in something you enjoy that’s new to them.

But yeah, I found the whole intro section a bit confusing because it’s just extremely common to find people enjoying an hour alone at a café here and certainly not “against the reasons cafès exist”.

> (is it an American thing?)

I don't know if the author is American but americanos are not an American thing so they are likely not in the US.

> americanos are not an American thing

Certainly every coffeeshop here in Seattle has them and and I expect most do elsewhere too.

Espresso has taken over coffeeshops such that some won't also have drip coffee anymore and if that's what you want, an Americano is approximately how to get it.

Challenge: Find a coffee shop in the US that doesn't have Americano on the menu.

The 4 weeks of Vacation was the biggest thing to make me think not American.

Most cafes even chains like Starbucks sell americanos in the USA.

Its a social class thing. Homeless people sit alone, especially the crazy ones.

No brand new iphone or new macbook means poverty which is usually not cool.

It blows peoples minds if you read a book. Not a college textbook but something for fun. Homeless people don't read so they get confused.

Its like riding the bus. There's nothing wrong with public transit, its just that its somewhere warm for poor homeless people to sit all winter, so its not very cool.

What's this hell hole you live in where you can't read a book in a cafe without the world collapsing around you?

This doesn't fit at all with my perception.

> Its like riding the bus. There's nothing wrong with public transit, its just that its somewhere warm for poor homeless people to sit all winter, so its not very cool.

Public transport often is the best and most efficient way to move within a city where I live, or in places like London, Stockholm, Berlin or quite a lot of other European cities.

> Its a social class thing. Homeless people sit alone

Really? Anyone sitting alone is a homeless one? Anyone without a shitty Apple product is poor?

> Homeless people don't read

WTF. This one made me laugh out loud. You must not have had much contact to homeless people. I have had quite a few acquaintances in my lifetime being homeless, worked with them, did social work on the side. And I got to know so many different people with different interests. Yes, a few were the stereotypical homeless person depicted in mass media. A few were highly functional members of society, had a day job 9to5 - and still lived on the street. Many had read way more books than myself - and I am an avid reader.

What is it with this stereotyping of people.

> It blows peoples minds if you read a book.

Where do you live that reading a book will blow people's minds? I've been in many places and see people reading books and newspapers regularly and no thinks anything of it.

What kind of city / town do you live in?

No, it's a thing everywhere to be honest. People are their with their friends and you are the only one alone.

Without phone it would be too cringe, even with phone its cringe. I behave as if though I'm texting someone. It's the societal weight of being the one who is alone.

Other people don't care nearly as much you think.

If I want to see a movie, I see a movie. If I want to travel, I travel.

Now with my last vacation I happened to be on the same continent as a long term friend who I hadn't seen in very long time. We met up, and it was like we were hanging out in college again.

But I had a great time traveling solo before that.

If you have the mentality that you need to be around your friends constantly you'll never try anything new.

other people there have no way of knowing what your situation is. maybe you were with your friends just before they came in, or maybe youre meeting someone but theyre running late. most arent even going to be paying that much attention that they would notice, and even if they do theyre going to forget about you a second later because they have theyre own things to be worrying about

Do you feel like being a weirdo when you are alone in public transit?

Maybe you should treat cafes the same?

When Coffee People was just one shop in Portland, went there every day before work. (B4 internet or phones.) Loved the shop, but they played pretty aggressive rock. Not adverse to it, but first thing in the morning... Anyway was a regular. They played music via a CD player. I noticed they often silently mouthed the lyrics to the background music. Talked them into including a CD I gave them: Cecilia Bartoli "Heroines" (Rosinni). Over time it made it into the regular rotation. I noticed after a while the staff would also silently mouth the "words" being sung. Good times. Long ago.

You have to realize, that some folks were born in the age of super-information and immediacy.

When I take a picture, I get the luxury of immediately see what I got. When I wanted to hear some music, I can search it up, and hear an entire album in a question of seconds.

It's an incredible privilege to do that, but at the same time, we got so used to speed, that pausing can be new for us.

This year I had the opportunity to travel to Europe and just sit in a café, sipping coffee, just observing, and it also felt new and different for me.

I shot with an analogue camera because I enjoy the feeling of waiting for the results, not being able to see the results at the split of a second.

This blog resonates with me because I've been feeling I want to pause more, to create more memories, to be in the moment. I should go to a café without phones and a notepad.

Well said: it’s a privilege to be able to access everything on a device that isn’t much larger than the TV remote with which I grew up with!

Your comments make me glad I spent a childhood having to use analog phones to connect to the information superhighway - much pausing and reflection involved.

I guess we’ve come full circle with the spend of our societies, when we have a new generation rediscovering how to pause.

yeah the somewhat post-instant gratification world is interesting

A lot of my Gen Z friends do it in a couple ways, like with analog and now old digital cameras, some abstaining from social media almost to a religious level of deterrence where posting a story on a holiday is the rebellion

makes me, a millenial, feel like all of my social friends pretending to be influencers are doing something outdated, and everyone that's otherwise unregulated on their social media consumption are the same as chain smokers or opium addicts before the Opium Wars (dopamine wise, I'm aware of the exact similarity)

I'm interested and intruiged

How did you get on top of the cafe?

non-native english mistakes and my stubborness to check with any LLMs :)

Having kids allows you to somewhat similarly step out of your usual behavior patterns. Obviously not in the "I'll spend two hours watching someone move porcelain cups around" sense, but today I spent an hour standing barefoot ankle-deep in a muddy puddle holding an umbrella over my kid as they played with a Lego figurine and a plastic cup. I got soaked, but it wasn't too cold and if standing outside feeling the rain on your face, watching the clouds pass, and listening to the birds doesn't make you feel alive I dunno what does.

Similar experience here. I'm like those chimps set free after a life of captivity in a roofed enclosure. I just stare at the sky or maybe at the trees in the distance.

I struggled greatly with this article. There was something halting about it. Something precious. I felt that the author desperately wanted to elevate the mundane into the realm of the sublime.

I found myself annoyed.

I thought to myself "Are paragraphs a renewable resource? Is it wrong to waste them?"

It doesn't matter.

In neuroscience, there is a thing called the "default mode network" which is best known for being active when a person is not focused on anything in particular. The mind is awake, but at rest, like when you're daydreaming, bored, and have no goal oriented tasks. All sorts of neat stuff happens in this network, things like "shower thoughts", self reflection, autobiographical memories, thoughts about future goals and events, trying to figure out the people in your life -- their desires, intentions, emotions and thoughts. In boring situations like when I'm on the bus, or waiting in line for something, I'll spin it as an opportunity to spend time with the ole' default mode network. It's a good time observe people around you, as they're often completely engrossed in their devices. Occasionally I'll seek out other folks who are also chilling in the default mode network, and we'll sometimes share a knowing look.

I appreciated the author’s writing format.

For example, I read your first four sentences/paragraphs. When I got to your last paragraph, it was so long that I started skimming halfway and then just gave up.

I think a mix and match of small paragraphs and single line sentences for emphasis is a pretty good writing format for holding my attention, but I can see how others might be annoyed by it.

Yeah, I should have split the final paragraph into two, but I kept it long thinking it would be a funny contrast; it wasn't. In retrospect, it probably would have been better not to have made fun of the poster's style at all. I also find it annoying when commenters complain about trivial stylistic issues in folks' writing rather than engaging with the substance.

I've seen some other commentary on the short/one-line paragraphs trend, and linking it to LLMs. I think it is just kind of a thing of the times—attention spans and all that.

I think it is more suited to the ways people consume text these days, kind of like how digital platforms moved to sans-serif fonts. Long dense paragraphs are fine in books and newspapers but hard to read and don't flow right on web browsers.

Books have also always had sections of short paragraphs for dialogue or pacing effect. I find myself breaking my own writing into more succinct paragraphs/thoughts that start to feel like jumbled run-on sentences without line breaks.

eh, i'd rather have fun with rhetoric and do some light poking (even if it doesn't land sometimes) than nothing at all!

That neuroscience bit sounds like complete bullshit, but your annoyance is justified and I think shared by others in this thread.

There are many walks of life and some people are wired in ways that annoy us when they present themselves, or talk about themselves as this individual has. It is not only to elevate the mundane to the realm of the sublime, rather it’s to beat a profound lesson of life into us by proxy of whoever the characters are. Notice the shift from the friends, to I, to “you”. Notice the use of “you” in the blog post. You are being lectured. You need to be taught things that this individual just discovered, because you are clueless and they are wise. That is why you feel annoyed.

Whenever you hear someone using the royal “we” to lecture you, you’re always welcome to ask “who is we?”, because it’s appropriate to understand who is actually being discussed. This individual thinks that we are clueless and they are carrying the stone tablets to teach us. They have a long way to go.

> That neuroscience bit sounds like complete bullshit

If only there was a way to learn more about things you don’t know:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network

This doesn't match my experience at all, starting from the beginning. Many go to cafes alone to read, work, study etc. Seating set up for this, including small tables and bars. That's one of their biggest draws. With large fluctuations, I estimate ~30%.

I suspect this depends on the location, given this contrast. It seems the Author might be from Delaware, USA? I haven't been to any coffee shops there. Maybe this is an exception? Of interest, it does not match my experience in coffee shops elsewhere on the East Coast (Va, NC, Mass for example). Not my experience in various European countries as well.

>Many go to cafes alone to read, work, study etc.

I've seen a few cafes in the UK push back against this, in particular people who buy a drink and then sit at a laptop for hours. One I visited last week had a large table set aside for laptops and the rest were marked as laptop free.

I enjoy a laptop free café. I’ve (thankfully) never come across any that has a problem with reading though.

Yeah, I live in Japan and going to cafes to basically have a meditative experience is the norm if anything.

I really enjoyed reading this. I can totally see where the author is coming from. I have a dog, and this holiday season my wife went away to her parents for a month and I was all alone with my dog. My daily routine was to just take him for a hike in the morning, workout in my basement gym, cook some breakfast then do some mundane activities at home then prepare cooking for lunch (always prepare extra lunch for the neighbours or the random friend that shows up at my door), then again take the dog out to the dog park and enjoy conversation with regulars and or new ones. Come back enjoy lunch, read some book, then around 4pm before it gets too dark, take the dog out again for a hike. Stop by at a friend's house or just come back home watch a Disney movie then read again until you fall asleep.

All this time, I would intentionally forget my phone at home and all my notifications except calls were turned off.

EDIT: I must say having a dog made a lot of difference, I don't know if I would feel the same being just alone. That might be an experiment for another time :-).

> It’s contradictory to sit alone in a café. It’s against the reason cafés exist.

> They are designed as meeting spaces. There is no table with a single chair.

I'm so confused by this, because every cafe I've ever been to is full of people there alone. It seems to almost be the default, honestly.

For me, cafes are essentially libraries; except cafes actually have reasonable opening hours. I can't get work done at home (too many distractions), so I switch up my environment to one where I am forced to work.

Go to any coffee shop in Palo Alto and Menlo Park, and you're bound to see students and tech workers sitting alone, typing away on their laptops. Even in LA, you'll see people editing videos and posting stuff on social media.

I think it's perhaps very American to go to cafes alone, especially if you are going there to get work done. Anecdotally, I had a French tennis partner back in 2022. One time, after our match, we went to a neighborhood cafe to chat and talk about life. He remarked to me how strange and foreign it is that Americans work so hard. He finds it stupid, even off-putting, that people work in cafes, which to him is a place to relax and socialize. He used slightly stronger language than stupid, so I didn't have the heart to tell him I plan to work in a cafe later that day. Maybe it's just a cultural thing.

Being alone in cafes is common and normal in Europe too. So is working there. It's just a nice break from being at home, and often your only option on the road.

Cafés can be both of those spaces.

I envy that. Any socialization after college needs to be deliberate and planned. Be it a small friend gathering, a scheduled meetup, or some organizational third place like a club, church, concert, etc. Note that all of those are paid experiences (even church, if you argue about being pressured to pay tithes and offerings).

If you're not into bar life, it's not that easy to just have spontaneous conversion here. Any invasion of space is seen as odd at best and threatening at worst. Even for neighbors.

I was also instantly struck by the intro of this piece of writing. It just doesn't make sense to me to state one's subjective interpretation as a universal fact, a universal law, as "the reason cafés exist". As if there is only one reason.

I really do not get the tendency to reduce everything down to one singular reason or cause. Is this a monotheistic religious thing? Is this a binary thing? I just can't wrap my head around this. But that might just be me - having originally studied literature and history (after graduating from high school with mainly stem subjects) I always felt I had one foot in each of those worlds - one in the "hard sciences" one more in the humanities. Never able to reduce myself to just one reason of being or one interest - and never able to attribute only one reason/meaning to a work of art.

So my long winded way of saying, that I just did not buy the premise.

I really like the article but in order to get the most of it, I had to mentally change the author's writing style. I think the article works much better if you reframe it from second person to first person and restate the general platitudes as observations of one particular place and experience.

As someone who very much enjoys going to cafes solo and just observing, in my experience people sitting alone are definitely a small minority, unless they’re there with a laptop. This even in my stereotypically introverted culture (Finns).

Right, exactly. Cafés _used_ to be meeting places; now, they are "coffee, solitude, and WiFi acquisition places"

Because it's just AI output.

Lately I've found that cafes (and also some very popular restaurants) blast music at rock concert levels of volume. That seems to be a requirement to compete, for some reason. I waited at a cafe last year while my partner was at a meeting, and when I left (after about 90 minutes) my ears were ringing very loudly and that continued overnight. Not really a place for meditative thinking. The next time I had to go there, I brought noise cancelling headphones. I wonder what this does to the baristas who are there for many hours.

That's why it was so nice when I recently found a nice little mom-and-pop cafe that was quiet. I can't remember if there was music, but if there was, it was very quiet. Again, my partner was at a meeting, but this time I just sat and enjoyed my latte with no damage to my ears. I probably did look at my phone a few times. :)

That's sad to hear. Unless the place is explicitly brining in live music, I consider cafes to be relatively quiet in general. Almost as a way to explicitly avoid that "bar culture" where i can barely hear my own thoughts.

And most thankfully are in my area (just don't go to the one near schools on weekdays). Really hope it stays that way.

They do it do encourage turnover. Also: uncomfortable seats

I assume there must be a finite amount of anxiety from sole cafe trips.

I'm probably an above averagely anxious person, but after a few trips without disaster, it becomes a non issue.

> after a few trips without disaster

100%.

Exposure therapy is the cure for anxiety. I have a personal hunch that part of the massive rise in anxiety in the world is explained by many of us no longer being regularly forced outside of our comfort zones. Before the Internet and smartphones, we were obligated to go into the unknown much more often. It was a constant mandatory exposure therapy.

Today, I can't remember the last time I walked into a restaurant without already having seen the inside on Google Maps, read several reviews on Yelp, and perused the menu online.

> Exposure therapy is the cure for anxiety.

Except when it is not. Exposure can make an autistic person's anxiety worse.

And multiply by dinner eating. Which I have done solo many hundreds of times between business and other travel. Not something I think twice about. In fact, at conferences, I've sometimes been peopled-out by the end of the day and actively avoided going out of my way to setup group dinners unless they came together organically.

I have noticed that the young 'uns are quietly rebelling against the way things are. This is another example.

OP is considering going off social grid as they understand it ... OK, dumping doom-scrolling and sitting in a cafe alone and being obviously alone and then looking around and noticing things.

That sort of "interaction" used to be normal. Having a billion people within ear shot was not normal until about 15 years ago.

If you travel solo, going to cafe's, bars, and especially restaurants can be a bit awkward. But also enjoyable. Mostly, it's just a mental block that people need to get over.

Some venues are really just not designed for solo travelers. You have all these couples and social groups having fun with each other and then the tables they give to social travelers don't tend to be the nicest.

This is annoying if you are hungry and not looking to get another fast food meal. But fast food restaurants are of course perfect for solo travelers otherwise. And there are lots of restaurant types that serve decent food in a bit informal setting where eating by yourself is not that weird. Other good options include hotel restaurants. Because hotels tend to have lots of solo travelers. The bigger the city, the easier it is to find nice places to eat by yourself generally.

Cafes are easier. Lots of people go there to have a coffee by themselves, work, read, or whatever. It's normal. The venue might not like the sub optimal use of tables though. But if it's not too busy and you tip well, they typically don't mind people staying for a few hours and perhaps reading or working on a laptop. I do this a lot.

I don't drink alcohol anymore and getting drunk by yourself in a bar can be a bit weird. Though depending on the bar, it's perfectly normal to have a drink by yourself of course. These days I tend to like to sit down after a day of sight seeing to have a few cold alcohol free beers. Lots of places where this is perfectly normal.

I've been traveling solo for a few decades. I can be quite social but I'm also fine not talking to people for days/weeks when traveling. It's not for everyone. I tend to prefer booking apartments and self catering these days. Going to restaurants for dinner is expensive and not really worth it to me by myself. But I'll have coffees, light lunches, and other beverages.

"So, I took long walks with my dog.

What used to feel like 10 minutes between breakfast and lunch while working became a full-blown day. Even though I was spending two hours walking my dog instead of a 30-40 minute rush, it felt like an eternity"

My dog has a way of slowing down time, although he won't tell me how. I think as humans we know what we expect from this other species, but they have a way of reorganizing the walk to suit themselves. I do it largely to bond with my best bud and get some exercise. He on the other hand goes out to catch up on doggy social media, with endless sniffing and donating further smells. Every walk is different - the route's the same but the sensory part is constantly changing. All this takes place, silently. We go back home satisfied but I know my boi gets the most satisfaction from it!

this is a very cute anecdote, thank you. my parents have three dogs, so i've had similar thoughts. i believe they're just truly used to the dead space in a day. it makes sense once i think about it, but it feels so far away

I feel you.

> I decided to leave my phone at home

I used to do this too but soon I realized I wanted my phone for payments (say, coffee) and/or unlocking public bikes (like Lime).

Now I have 2 phones: - Phone A with my SIM, internet, payment cards, but unlogged from any internet account - Phone B, no SIM, usually connected to Phone A via hotspot, with email, messaging apps, logged into hacker news and everything.

When I want to take an offline walk/ebike-ride I only bring Phone A with me.

Sitting in a coffee shop alone with a pen and journal is restorative time for me. No laptop, no headphones, no phone.

Another thing to try is to go to a diner alone. Same deal.

> Another thing to try is to go to a diner alone. Same deal.

Oh yeah. This is one of the things I enjoy most when traveling for work (more often than not means traveling alone). I can go to dinner alone, watch people interact, feel the city, the people, the staff.

Discovering dinner alone to me was an interesting experience. And a lovely one at that.

This is a highly romanticized view imo.

I sit alone in cafes all the time, for many reasons. I don’t feel particularly joyful about it nor weird. I just do it to take a break and have something to drink, or wait for someone or something. Often I don’t look at my phone at all. That doesn’t feel weird either, or rebellious, or whatever the author experiences.

I don’t understand the post at all.

I’d have gone to Japan. I’ve been to Japan, it’s awesome.

It shouldn't feel weird not to look at your phone, but approximately 98.5% of the population will do so (unless perhaps they're the older generation).

When you're so addicted to checking at your phone (like me and many others), it does feel weird to sit and not look at it.

I say this to help you understand, nothing more.

Agreed, Japan is 1000x better than any staycation especially for some privileged enough to get time off and as well compensated as the author.

I know lots of broke-ass people who manage to travel and have a cup of coffee while there. It's choices, not privilege. Author of the piece sure is insufferable, though.

Part of the magic of being human is the interplay between our external world and internal states.

Two people can go to the exact same venue, do the exact same things, and have radically different experiences because of how our different internal worlds collide with that same external world.

And a further part of the magic of being human is that we're then able to share those experiences with each other. I wouldn't want to diminish someone else's experience of a place simply because I didn't have that same experience.

This author has never been alone with their thoughts before....

Is it surprising to you that not everyone has experienced the same thing? Half of my friends have never been in a gym, is that bad?

Except for some weird circumstances like you have 2 friends or your part of a nomadic tribe, yeah that sounds like an issue. People should work out

Probably first extended time in a while. Everyone has a little box in their pocket that pumps out dopamine on demand, couple that with the hustle and bustle culture and I think it’s great the author is exercising more agency and presence over the inertial path. Kudos to them.

Clearly. What's there to be awkward about? You should be enjoying the coffee you came there for

Have you ever turned off your thoughts?

I did not know going to a cafe alone was a strange thing to do. In fact it is a place I would consider it is completely common to go alone - whereas a restaurant is less common.

It literally changed my life.

A decade ago I was working a boring job paying the bills in a small company. I honestly felt that despite being financially safe I was wasting my life. I didn't believe in the company mission and I wasn't gaining new skills. I was bored out.

I went to a cafe every morning for 30min BEFORE my actual job. I did whatever I wanted, meaning reading, writing, jolting down ideas, being productive or not, but the point was it was MY time to think.

This is so basic. I went with a notebook, a pencil, paid 2€ every morning for a basic black coffee... but what was special was having a dedicated time and place regularly to just inch at it, whatever "it" might be for me.

Well, fast forward ~10 years and I'm HYPED. I'm so excited pretty much every morning that I can't help for the next day to work on more interesting projects.

TL;DR: yes, go to the cafe, alone, for yourself.

Another way to put, that I thought of few weeks ago :

- embrace liminal spaces

We tend to see such spaces as waste. We tend to skip them. We use any trick possible, from rushing to having a mobile phone with a podcast. We find ways to avoid being alone with our thoughts.

Guess where ideas come from? Shower? Waiting for the bus? ... they come from our running minds NOT being entertained.

Embrace liminal spaces. Make your own liminal spaces. They are liberating.

We are destined to re-discover meditation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46353700

I used to do this so often during my university days. In today's attention-starved ecosystem, drift is such a luxury. There's this urge to fill the gap, with scrolling on our phones, impulse shopping online, or just opening and closing the apps. We've subscribed to the fear of missing out, of being out of touch, of being left behind.

Drifting is a way to push all that feedback in the background. It does not necessarily have to be a staycation at a cafe. It can be a walk in a park, a morning jog with a friend who's comfortable with your silence, a book reading session in the twilight. We need to slow down and relax to truly appreciate the pace of life, and drifting is such an awesome way to do it. Lovely post. It reminded me of good times in the past, and that I need to make time for them in future.

I loved to go to the movie theater just by myself. I am not sure what makes it more exciting to me. I haven't done that since I am married, but I should.

That's a beautiful writing style. Feels like there's some Anthony Bourdain in it :)

It feels like the average LinkedIn post, down to the paragraph breaks used as emphasis. I find it incredibly grating.

Indeed. It's utterly dumbfounding how many people seems to find this terrible writing (and thinking) to be good

Not that I want to be necessarily contrarian, but just a few months ago I decided to stop worrying about using my phone, and it honestly feels like the most liberating decision of my life.

There is nothing wrong with it.

I think that many people feel like their lives suck in some way that they can't define or explain, and they want something to blame it on, and their phone is an excellent target. It's relatively new. Of course it's the source of recent problems. It's CONVENIENT. You can do something about it by simply not looking at it.

Your phone is not the source of any of your problems.

>I think that many people feel like their lives suck in some way that they can't define or explain, and they want something to blame it on, and their phone is an excellent target.

They will blame anything but the billionaires.

But to be a devil's advocate: I think most phone issues arise from a child's use of them. They don't have the discipline to put a phone down, and then it enshrines habits that last into adult hood. Gen Z is the testing grounds for such a phenomenon.

Sadly, working adults who need to chat with work, get calls for interviews, schedule and get updates on appointments, and check on family do need to have their phone on the ready. I don't think anyone is condemning the people here. Just the system.

The turn-off-the-phone crowd tend to be in situations where parents, young kids, doctors, interview calls, etc. getting in touch isn't a priority. Yes, voicemail is a partial answer but an imperfect one in this day and age. Didn't even used to have and just got messages on a voicemail device (after the mid-80s or so) but there's a much greater expectation of being able to reach people easily today.

You can do all of these things outside the hour you spent at a cafe. Constant availability is partly self-imposed.

For me this is the running I do. No phone accessible (still with me for safety). Just the repetitive sound of my feet and breathing, lets my mind wander and enjoy the isolation.

> It’s contradictory to sit alone in a café. It’s against the reason cafés exist.

Fresh out the gate just wrong and confused.

I come from India. Many years ago I remember I was having a tough day and very less money on me and sitting by a busy road side tea stall along and sipping my Rupee 2 tea , looking at passers by and traffic. I don't remember anything more but that thought often comes to me randomly and makes me happy even after about 20 years. Life brings joy at unexpected corners.

I used to do this every now and then. I would leave my phone at home and take a book and a notebook to a coffee shop and sit and sip. I would read if I felt like it, or write, or just plain stare. I also chose cafes that were a hit of a walk away.

It was absolutely glorious. I got to think my own thoughts, get bored, get into conversations with random people.

I should do it more often.

Nice read, but the "Unlike most of my friends, who visited Japan in 2025." is funny to me. I go to a bakery/cafe next to me every day, before work at around 8am over here. And all regulars are there by themselves, and sometimes with their family members. Half of the clientele in almost all non-trendy cafes are solo sitters as well.

When I discovered the whole "doing things alone" stuff a decade ago, it felt like a pressure was lifted off me. It's been good. It brings me extra joy when I take people to places that I frequent as well, it just feels like I'm introducing them to my own little spots. Hope you enjoy more of it!

Rawdogging a coffee, will try it.

Thats one way to put it. Yeah I dont care if I am alone or with friends, typically if I get a coffee and I am alone I rarely stay because I can go back to what I was doing before I needed coffee. I do sometimes go get coffee with my daughter the problem is shes nearly four years old and will want all the pastries.

The only problem is, when you are alone and not looking at your phone, you tend to observe people around. But unfortunately, looking at others is seen as being a weirdo, while looking at phone is considered super normal.

Also, the reason people feel comfortable with dogs is because, you don't need to act or talk in way to impress the dog, while technically not being alone. You don't get this freedom while being with people, unless you are the boss of the gang. The lack of freedom is usually offset of by the benefit of sharing, laughs and a feeling that you have achieved your goal of impressing others.

> But unfortunately, looking at others is seen as being a weirdo

No it’s simpler than that:

1) sitting alone - you’re a weirdo

2) sitting doing nothing public, staring off into space like you’re a zen master - no, you’re a weirdo

3) blogposting how you sat alone in a public space for 30 minutes and how this is an “unbearable joy” - do I need to spell it out?

This person needs help. They are having an episode. If someone has gone so far as to have this level of emotional outburst by leaving their phone at home, there’s deeper issues to unpack.

For the rest of us, sitting down at the cafe to have a nice drink and something to eat while we look at the cars and foot traffic going by is a perfectly normal activity.

The more accessible version of this, for me, is lying in the bath. The phone is out of reach and it's more effort than is worthwhile to get any props other than maybe a book I don't care about getting wet into reach. So there's just nothing.

In that situation I can usually last about 5 minutes before my brain says write that thought down, you'll forget it so forcefully that the bath gets cut short. Rampant unmedicated ADHD has a lot to answer for. So I can second the physical writing recommendation, if only because having a laptop in the bath is a really stupid idea.

I love to sit alone in a cafe - reading. Before smartphones I was reading newspapers or books. Now I read on my phone or tablet. While there, I don’t want to talk to anyone, I just want to sit and read quietly.

I can count the number of impromptu conversations I had at a cafe on one hand. That just doesn't seem to be a thing these days.

Honestly it feels kind of rude for people to just walk up and talk to you while you are obviously trying to focus on reading something.

Lots of cafés and restaurant in Tokyo have seating designed for just one person. It's usually a cozy spot in the corner. It's not uncommon at all to go to cafés alone. Many people study, read, or just quietly sit. I feel like bars are a place where people go to socialize. Anyways, I'm happy for him. Some people never feel comfortable being alone. I personally view solitude as a key factor in my creative and personal growth. Even better when it's in nature.

I spent much of my youth at cafe's alone an hour or two until someone I know comes by. Before everyone had cell phones, such places were used by us as a place to be, waiting to see who comes by, waiting to see what the world was going to bring. There is part of me that misses that way of being. But I suspect that it would be like video games. It sounds funner than it is, and so while I may buy a game or two, I rarely spend my time doing it.

Done that many times only never thought of writing a nice piece like this.

Certainly not with pen and paper. Lol that skill gone these days can't write a sentence I can read later.

ive spent much of my life sitting alone in cafes, some places i became something of a fixture. what made me welcome was i never used a laptop, always left the copy of whatever newspaper or magazine i was reading behind in their pile, tipped well, and kept to myself.

i used to leave my copy of the weekend FT or the economist at one and there were people who would wait for me to be finished with it. others would have been reading it for months without knowing i was the one who supplied it.

friends knew where to find me and could show up and sit at my table for a bit on their way places. covid policies killed most of those cafes in my city, and nothing can replace a multi decade family run restaurant that anchored a neighbourhood. its part of why i don't forgive what happened. it was my culture they dismantled in their hysteria. i am glad nature is healing and younger people are learning how to be welcome and open to the serendipity of participating in the city. i was worried i was the last of the boulevardiers. get a book, turn off your phone, dont look at the prices and just sit somewhere for a while, eat and drink as much as you enjoy, and just be a quiet pleasant presence. the world rewards it.

This article is kind of hilarious to read. This is my life since getting a dog (and I've been doing versions of it before my dog too) but this guy just discovered the way Europeans have been living for hundreds of years and wrote a whole article about it. I guess this is also one of the great things about the internet. Another person's mundane thing is another person's discovery.

To me, this story is one of a person discovering the freedom found by unplugging:

  On the second day, I decided to leave my phone at home, so 
  I lived those two hours to the fullest. I didn’t take any 
  device that could connect me to the internet or to other 
  people.

By consciously relinquishing the ability to electronically connect, the author was able to connect with the moment and thus find joy in it.

Japan is not the ideal place I would go to for a cafe, but I get the sentiment. When the weather is nice I love going for a morning walk with my dog on a lazy weekend morning and just sitting outside at a cafe reading a book. Coffee itself is secondary to this experience, it’s mostly just the vibe of the place that brings me there. That’s why small local cafes that don’t like people to sit at tables for too long are so off putting.

I disagree. Japan is the ideal place. Kissaten are a cultural treasure. Craig Mod has written at length about them and why they are so precious. I go to cafes strictly for the vibe, and I have fond memories of Japanese cafes.

Never tried that in my Japan trips as life is too rushed. But have seen old Japanese cafe in Singapore where jap patrons sit for hours reading manga sipping coffee. I'm sure the culture is there in Japan too..

"The Unbearable Joy of Sitting Alone".

This is good enough for me. Yeah I have a family and a son, but I enjoy sitting alone with a cup of coffee (doesn't have to be in a Cafe), programming my own project.

As the article hints, sitting in a crowded place sometimes actually REDUCES distraction, because those white noise around me reduces the need to pull out my cell phone. I think I always perform better in such an environment.

> It’s contradictory to sit alone in a café. It’s against the reason cafés exist.

Not at all. I've never been a huge cafe person, so I don't have much firsthand experience with this, but I do recall a time before laptops and cell phones when people would go to cafes to just read the newspaper or a magazine. Heck, some cafes even had the daily paper there for you to borrow if you wanted.

  > There were a few moments I put  my hand into my pocket to take out my phone to look up something I was curious about. My phone wasn’t there.

My dad smoked for decades and when he tried to quit his hand would instinctively go to his pocket dozens of times a day.

That is the level that smartphone addiction is on. Literally ruining peoples lives.

I'm a bit surprised to not see mention in comments of "social vs sociable." There's often something nice about being around people that you're interacting with only minimally (sociable) vs being around people you're talking with (social). The shutdown in 2020 did away with a lot of options for"sociable."

I don't think about anyone at the cafe, unless I start chatting with someone. I just take a physical book with me, crack it open, and read as I sip my coffee. I keep a notepad nearby in case I have good ideas while reading. I may get a refill. When I've read enough, I leave. It's 100% relaxing for me.

I love sitting alone in Wetherspoons, and working, it's actually perfect because:

- None of my colleagues, and nobody in any of my social circles, would ever be seen dead there

- You meet the best people, everyones really nice

- Nobody judges anybody, we're all just there go get a bit pissed, lots of people socialising, some people are there doing a crossword, I'm just a guy sitting on my laptop coding, nobody cares

- I can focus better with lots of background noise

- Cheap beer

If you've not tried it, try it!

I recommend only sitting on a leather seat, or laying a waterproof jacket over a cloth seat. Too many times I've come out of Wetherspoons itching - and not from knackering my liver!

Worth it though for ~£1.30 unlimited tea and coffee.

Coffee refills too! And the characters, especially in the day time. I probably wouldn't say they're /all/ nice people.

Apparently Wetherspoons is British? Never heard of it. Now I'm curious to the characters inside, got some memorable anecdotes?

The Lord Rosebery, Westborough, Scarborough. Friday around 6pm. Plenty of people watching potential. You sort of have to be there.

It is a chain of very cheap pubs, often known by the abbreviated name "spoons".

It's the sort of place you can go at 9am and see people having a full English breakfast with a large glass of wine. It's people who want to drink a lot of alcohol for not a lot of money, but not quite at the point where they're buying very cheap cider (which is always alcoholic in the UK), and sitting in the park with it. There's a veneer of high-functioning about it.

They do vary a bit (the "posh pub" in central Hull is the 'spoons, one of the roughest pubs I've been to in West London is also a 'spoons), but the clientele are typically white, working class, pro-Brexit (the founder is very anti-EU and publishes an in-house propaganda mag to that effect), pretty right wing, heavy drinkers.

It's not my preferred crowd, I'd rather spend a bit more and go to a pub where there's a chance somebody is reading something other than the Daily Mail or The Sun, but each to their own.

Can recommend the Mediterranean side salad and a bowl of roasted veg off the side menu if you are hungry.

In the centre of the city there are three spoons. One for the people with tattoos on their knuckles (near the magistrates' court oddly - I used to pick up gossip in the barbers round the corner but he has been bought out so the building can be converted in to 'luxury apartments'), one for the old geezers with leather jackets and a third very large one opposite a conference centre. This latter one very well managed and always a seat. All kinds of people but never rammed.

The irony of these type of blog musings is how they always try to outline the neuroticism of our culture as being afraid of being alone and too connected online.

Because at the same time they themselves sound entrenched in it by making an effort to take a step back and appreciate something as simple and normal as sitting alone in a cafe.

> a cup of americano with a double shot of espresso.

What is that exactly? A cup of percolator coffee with a double shot of espresso into the cup? Or a long black (a double shot of espresso filled up with hot water) plus two extra espresso shots? Or just a long black expressed in a complicated way?

> Or just a long black expressed in a complicated way?

Presumably this. Coffee terminology is (apparently) not global. I've never seen the term "long black", and I visit cafés quite a lot. Wikipedia lists it as a thing primarily in Australia/New Zealand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_black

They are basically the same, long black is water with espresso poured on top, americano is espresso with water poured on top.

Alpha types might appreciate sitting alone in a café more if they realize that it is the ultimate power flex. I remember a quote from many years ago: standing on a street corner, waiting for no one, is power. I appreciate that much more in retirement.

Lovely piece.

Some of my most interesting moments have come from simply sitting still and doing nothing.

Highly recommended.

> I was sitting alone in a café with a dog

That isn't alone though. People are anxious to sit alone in a cafe because they think it's weird being all alone. But when you're with a dog - it's a different story.

Brought REM’s ÜBerlin to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZITh-XIikgI

This reminds me of the “techbro discovers very common x thing” meme. Going to a coffee shop (that is 75% solo remote workers) without your phone and pretending it’s some divine experience feels conceited. Do things you like, sometimes don’t check your phone.

Very well written title though.

The ‘thesis statement’ at the top (It’s contradictory to sit alone in a café. It’s against the reason cafés exist.) is entirely incorrect - and it’s odd that the author thought like that. But I don’t think they deserve to be denigrated.

The post is eloquently written, and if it inspires people to take a little time for themselves the world will be a little of a better place because of it. And posting it makes the author a little vulnerable; I’d much rather people write posts like this than self-censor because they’d be exposed to ridicule.

I agree. This was evidently a new experience for this person, and maybe the reason is that they’re… a new adult? Anyway, even old people have new experiences all the time. At least this person is putting themselves out there and doing something active. Good for them.

Except the dog thing. PLEASE do not bring your dog into a cafe. Somehow people like me are in the minority though so I will stop here.

Exactly how I feel about this. As a European living in the US this reads “American discovers sitting down with a cup of coffee instead of taking it outside”.

Instead of getting it through their car window, judging by these numbers

https://www.ft.com/content/db5bb7a8-f7f3-4953-9c8f-870073943...

In case you didn’t know, the title is just a straightforward edit of Kundera’s famous novel title.

I did not, thanks :)

Too bad.

The writing style...

quickly loses it's luster.

After you make it past the title.

It's the linkedin writing style, the idea is to make a bland anecdote with some vapid "insights" sound interesting by making it all enthusiastic and breathless like a TED talk

Haha this made me laugth... Although I really liked the post, I agree!

techbro discovers sitting down for a cup of coffee doesn't need to be a networking event.

… but does turn it into “content”.

manic pixie dreamnerd syndrome. sad! many such cases

It seems a bit absurd to call someone a tech bro for experiencing something for the first time and writing about it - especially something as benign as going to a cafe.

It was very reminiscent of a LinkedIn screenshot I saw of a someone saying “I’ve been thinking a lot about irl podcasts. Just sitting down with a group of peers, no recording, etc” and someone replying “techbro rediscovers hanging out with friends”

If you are over 50 and live in Southern Europe this used to be a ver common way to spend an afternoon. Maybe add a newspaper and definitely a cigarette to go with your coofee. Very relaxing.

While on holidays in Sarajevo, Bosnia, I saw a sign that said something like 'take away coffee available'. So most cafes you are expected to sit down and have your coffee :)

For me, the issue is not being alone, or quiet. I don't even own a cell phone.

It's everyone else with the incessant noise; non-stop music; speaker/video calls; and now AI talking back to you via phone. Speakerphones are the worst, I cannot believe we normalized having a two way conversation via speakerphone while holding it up to your ear.

I used to enjoy nature and just sitting and staring, with portable bluetooth speakers and phones blasting music, I can't do that anymore. I used to enjoy the library and just sitting, reading whatever random facts I could find. Last couple times I went, I was yelled at to mind my own business by people when I asked them to take their phone conversations to the lobby. So I went to another library, librarians were loud and several meetings via Teams were going on by different people.

Local rail trails are similar, I can't just take a walk in peace and quiet anymore. Honestly, removing the 3.5mm port is when I started noticing when it all got worse.

> I cannot believe we normalized having a two way conversation via speakerphone while holding it up to your ear.

It's not normal, those people are rude.

Indeed it's rude, but since I suddenly found myself unplannedly having to use an iPhone I found that's it's hard to position the speaker so that my ear can actually hear the other person.. I have to carefully keep micro-adjusting the position until I can actually hear something, and then ask the person to start from the beginning. Speakerphone fixes that. Not that I would ever do that in public though.

I take my lunch break every day and sit in a cafe alone and work math problems - it's by far the most relaxing, enjoyable part of my day.

I often do this too clear some air or to take a break from the tech world of today. We all should have something similar in our lives. Not everything is meant to be searched and read about tirelessly, sometimes it's nice to just walk in a park and look at what the animals have going on around you.

This reminds me of a experience that I encountered in my own life that i wish more people felt when explaining. I am not the best at telling stories but i will try to keep it short.

There was a time i lived in Florida for a few years and it was joyous i must say. I love nature and Florida sure does have that to offer, ignoring the politics and the obstacles that take the joy out of Florida. I visited many national parks, exploring animals That i have never seen before that are native to that region, i cant put into words how wonderful it is to see some of these animals living in their habitat going about their business. One thing that stuck out was when i was walking a trail and came across a small box turtle crossing a trail and i picked up to see it not thinking of why it might be crossing away from water, first i thought doesn't thing need to be around water shortly after i realized that it does not " it is a box turtle". I returned the turtle a little further away from where i originally picked it up and sat on a near by bench to watch it continue it's journey. As i sat down the turtle continued to stare at me at disgust as to how dare i touch it and move it from its original location. From there i see the turtle continue walking and returned to the same exact path it was already going before it's interruption from the degenerate up right ape evolved clothed creature , myself. i think about that everyday because despite all of it's interruptions it ignored all of that and continued the slow path towards its goal. At times I think we really don't understand the world nor the reality that is around us, some more than others, some due to the influx of societies pressure that are at times blinders for a horse to on one path.

Made me think of Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega.

Go listen :)

Unplugging and/or disconnecting is a skill. Read this post with a smile on my face because I do the same thing as often as I can.

You know, on the internet I've read a lot about how "it's not weird" to sit alone in cafe's and restaurants. But in real life, even when I don't think it's weird, people go out of their way to make sure I know it is. You can try and ignore what people think, but it is an exhausting exercise in mental gymnastics.

Same goes for not caring about what people in think when you're trying to work on your health and go to a gym.

I don't know, it just feels really bad, no one wants to be treated badly, it's that simple. But if you can manage to find a good spot where it just works out for you, treasure/keep that.

Solitude is precious when it is done with purpose.

I think the problem with articles like this is the insensitivity to others. The phrase "A porcelain cup makes ..." is a declaration for all of humanity. The reality is "A porcelain cup, for me, makes ...". Qualifying the experience as possibly someone only experienced by the teller makes the story more relatable, as opposed to a value judgment.

I think the "for me" part is implied with pieces like these.

Isn't it astonishing how much happier the author / most of us could be without our phones?

Go to a major city. There are tons of people doing things alone, including sitting in a cafe.

Reading 1 min into it.. somehow I felt he was German.. and voila.. he lives in Berlin.

I’m quite surprised that Berlin is a place where it’s seen as odd to go to a café alone.

I’ve certainly done it there plenty of times, but it would never have even occurred to me that it may be unusual.

It isn‘t. Absolutely not.

Meditation used to need a cave or a mountain, now it just needs a cafe and no phone.

I do not understand the attraction or rather the glorification of going to a Cafe alone.

"It was pure delight. Every element. Or rather, the non-existence of any element. No phone. No headphones. No tablet. No laptop." I believe I can do this anywhere.

They talk about interactions with people in the cafe but it is primarily avoiding interactions.

I do this everyday. Made possible by financial freedom from employment.

Congrats and enjoy!! Are you retired? Windfall? Successful exit?

Is this a post I'm too European to understand? That writing style is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

I love lingering in cafés. In the summer, I bike from café to café, catching up with my reading and slowly getting to a productive state. I'll do a bit of reading for work, maybe annotate some articles, eventually open my laptop, and if I'm lucky meet friends along the way. I often leave at 9 and come home at around midnight.

If I'm feeling lazy, I just do it on my balcony. Spending the first hour of the day just gathering your thoughts does wonders for your wellbeing. This winter, I created a space for this inside too. I recently got a nice stereo and I put easy listening music on it while I have my morning coffee. No phone, no emails, just me, my thoughts and a warm drink.

When I travel, I do the same. I sketch and make watercolours on the go. I've done this in dozens of countries, and not once have I got the impression that being on your own in a café was odd. What a weird take.

>Is this a post I'm too European to understand?

Are you in a top tier city? Very very few cafes are open late (later than 8pm) in cities and if youre not in a big city, Chicago, NYC, Seattle etc etc you will likely have none open that late. It's definitely a culture thing. Not many folks are drinking coffee / hanging out that late in cafes. Enough do, but nowhere near as much as Europeans do

Usually you go to a cafe in the morning, and to a pub in the evening. I could wax poetic about the joy of having a beer in the late afternoon, before the place fills up.

I was born and raised in Canada. I manage to keep up my routine just fine when I visit. Sure, the cafes are in the middle of a parking lot by a box store, but in a pinch they'll do.

This is hardly a "top tier city" thing. I went on many road trips and pretty much always managed to start my day with a slow coffee, even in the smallest towns.

Agree on the paper cup burning the tongue. Hate that too. But then coffee gets cold within minutes in porcelain cup.

Solution: I bring along a flask and use the paper cup as a cup and flask as cache. Means I lose the discount offered on byo but doesn't matter.

“They are designed as meeting spaces. There is no table with a single chair.”

Grating.

before long we will all just be sitting in cafés alone staring at each other alone and together we will all just take in the experience of being alone with each other in a café

The part that seems to need emphasis is that the author happened to walk inside this neighborhood cafe while just walking his dog. To many Americans, the idea of just walking into a cafe is probably alien (you need to drive everywhere).

The one downside of non-urban life (and crappy public transportation). It's overall quieter than if I lived downtown and I appreciate that. But in terms of walking, I have a Mexican joint and then everything else takes effort.

The Wal Mart plaza is only a mile away, but unfortunately its a fully uphill mile that has me going 200 feet in elevation. And in terms of cafe, it's simply a tiny corner Starbucks. The local joints are about 3 miles out east or west as a start.

If this is something you want to do you might consider a bike. A 6 mile round trip on for for coffee seems a bit much, but 3 miles each way on a bike shouldn't be bad unless you're in a city (in which case there should be things closer). You could also do this same thing with a thermos of coffee/tea and a local park.

This is why I'll never move back to Canada. A cafe will be a few red lights away on these ugly wide roads, in the middle of a parking lot surrounded by box stores.

It's not just the driving that sucks, but the ugly environment it created.

I like sitting in bars and cafes alone. Reading mostly.

For a level-up, try it with (well behaved) dogs!

> There were a few moments I put my hand into my pocket to take out my phone to look up something I was curious about. My phone wasn’t there.

> I smiled. Every. Single. Time.

> On the second day, I randomly walked into a neighborhood café. I ordered an americano with a double shot of espresso.

And then I paid for the coffee with my pho- oh fuck.

It happened to me several times for real. Credit cards not accepted for charges below $15; cash in my wallet $4.05. Next I spend 30 minutes trying to install my bank app with a horrible cell connection so that I can use Zelle to send that $6 payment for coffee. The barista thinks I am a bum.

> There is no table with a single chair.

This is written not by a human. Because almost every other coffeeshop has tables with a single chair.

I love going to bars on my own...

Anyone else a bit tired of the "The Unbearable Joy of..." Titles? I'm sure sitting in a cafe is bearable.

Nah, every time some parody of this title comes up, it reminds me of the book and the movie. I like that :)

Juliette Binoche was perfect in the role.

I didn't read the book but I read The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. An eye-opener for a young college student.

True, “The Unbearable Lightness of…” is a much better choice

Yes, this and "unreasonable effectiveness" are both clichés at this point, and need to take a nice long rest.

"Unbearable Joy Considered Harmful"

-- Stanford experts and scientists weight in

I like to do this. Please don't create a term for it like "performative male", or "tech bro", or some such thing. Please.

This article reminds me of my favorite John F. Kennedy quote: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

There are three classes of people likely to be found alone:

  * Geniuses.
  * Psychopaths.
  * Psychopathic geniuses.

Huh? I go to a nearby cafe solo, all the time, and a lot of other people do, for instance, to read. That's how I met couple of them, actually.

Staycation is where it's at. As Marcus Aurelius already said, retire not to pompous resorts, but to thine inner truth and peace.

Watch what people do rather than listen to what they say.

Marcus Aurelius likely quipped about pompous resorts during one of his many four day public holiday visits to Alsium (a pompous seaside resort town), although he was known to write at length about the work he did on holidays rather than the time he spent on the beach.

As for retirement .. not a thing for Marcus. He died* age 58 in his military quarters while on active tour of Roman provinces (in either Austria or Serbia apparently).

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxDHv9Ktb78

Just wait til you guys discover vipassana meditation

I'm realizing the only time I'm not stimulated is when I'm driving or when I go for my daily walk. My mom was right man, it's these damn phones...

I recently completed a long road trip and realized partway through. I spent the first few days listening to an audiobook every time I got into the car. But one day, during a particularly long drive, I finished it. And I didn't put anything else on. A few hours later, I realized I'd spent those hours lost in my own thoughts in a way that just never occurs anymore.

Driving is the opposite of relaxing to me but I guess it is just you and your thoughts most of the time.

Its hard to express how terrible and deluded this article is...

The unbearable anti-sociality of modern people

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