"Solo & Social. A Table for One in a Sea of Millions."

Essay - 00002

Somewhere on the five block stretch of Farnsworth Avenue in Bordentown, New Jersey. A nondescript restaurant with a welcoming bar and a surprisingly mature menu. Tired and hungry I sat down next to an elderly couple with a parental familiarity after a long day of travel. I was oddly intrigued by the entire vibe. This was New Jersey? The bartender felt far too qualified, and far too familiar for a stranger. She had that ‘It’ quality that only lands on the luckiest of us. The elderly couple to my right chatted with one another with the precision and speed of a partnership that had seen its moments of discovery evaporate decades ago. Finishing each other’s thoughts in such a way that you knew they had barely seen more than two days apart most of their lives. Yet, even from 2 feet left, I could tell they were still madly in love. It made me smile quietly to myself knowing that kind of love does exist.

I took in the situation, the surroundings, and I changed my regular order. There was something going on here. Something I have felt a hundred times before while alone at the bar scanning a menu that reads like the least original book you’ve ever read. I deviated from my typical Pilsner and opted for the 2011 Laposté Cabernet. I took off my coat and smiled at my neighbors to the right. There’s sense you get with enough experience being solo and social of what those around you are willing to engage in, or eager to hear, or not even remotely interested in. An elderly couple with money to burn on a dozen oysters, looking for a reason to buy a stranger another a glass of wine. I smile at the bartender, open my shoulders the neighbors way, and it’s an easy play. I spend the next two hours learning how they met, all about their kids, and fielding proud parental style encouragements. They’re sweet, and kind, and they spoil me with the tab. I eat well. But inadvertently, and probably to my knowledge, they create a smoke screen. The bartender, who’s clearly overheard everything, now has some questions of her own. She’s been overly attentive, chiming in here and there until Mom and Dad head home. Wishing me luck in life, bickering over who has the keys, and feeling their own tinge of inspiration, parental duties fulfilled, they head off into the New Jersey night. I make a new kind of eye contact with the bartender and order a Pilsner.

But this is real life. The Rom-Com of the moment catches a breeze of reality. Two Pilsners later and I’m on my way. Again. A nice night in Bordentown, but another night alone. Because let’s face it, if I spent the rest of the night helping her close the bar down, busin’ the remaining tables so we can close down the local dive together, only to enjoy breakfast with her kids… you’d never believe me. And I’d never tell.

It’s another night, solo and social. There’ll be another tomorrow, and another after that. There’s a thousand stories just like it. Or is there? Perhaps we just make it all up. But either way, the pancakes are always just as sweet.