When I’m eating out alone, I try to sit at the counter or bar. First of all, it doesn’t feel so obviously pathetic as sitting as a table alone. And second, you never know who you will meet or what kind of interesting conversation you will have. At my diner up the road I tend to meet local farmers that look like Willie Nelson or Santa Claus. They have a good handle on the weather.
Yesterday I met “Peter” at a lunch counter in upstate NY. He turned out to be quite a character. A few open-ended questions later, I nearly had his whole life story. Single. Almost 60. (So far so good.) Has a girlfriend who’s 72. (Hhmmm…that’s unusual.) Brokers stuff (art, antiques) for interior decorators in NYC and Boston. His father is 99 and still driving. He pulled out a photo of him he carries (also unusual) – and one of him probably worth $40,000 b/c it was shot by a Life photographer and one similar to it was a magazine cover. His mother had free spirit hippie values – two boyfriends at once among other things. Peter did so much name dropping of famous people he knew or had been with that I had the faintest of smiles at the edges of my mouth listening to him. I was pretty amused that in twenty minutes of chit-chatting, the only things I told him about myself was that I was from NJ and worked for J&J – neither of which apparently held as much interest to him as himself. The funniest moment was when I asked him if he lived in Boston or NY since he spoke about both. His hesitant answer (hiding something more?) was, “My real estate holdings are in Boston.” Who says that?!
But hey, it was better than eating alone!
Yesterday I met “Peter” at a lunch counter in upstate NY. He turned out to be quite a character. A few open-ended questions later, I nearly had his whole life story. Single. Almost 60. (So far so good.) Has a girlfriend who’s 72. (Hhmmm…that’s unusual.) Brokers stuff (art, antiques) for interior decorators in NYC and Boston. His father is 99 and still driving. He pulled out a photo of him he carries (also unusual) – and one of him probably worth $40,000 b/c it was shot by a Life photographer and one similar to it was a magazine cover. His mother had free spirit hippie values – two boyfriends at once among other things. Peter did so much name dropping of famous people he knew or had been with that I had the faintest of smiles at the edges of my mouth listening to him. I was pretty amused that in twenty minutes of chit-chatting, the only things I told him about myself was that I was from NJ and worked for J&J – neither of which apparently held as much interest to him as himself. The funniest moment was when I asked him if he lived in Boston or NY since he spoke about both. His hesitant answer (hiding something more?) was, “My real estate holdings are in Boston.” Who says that?!
But hey, it was better than eating alone!