Coffee Service

In my experience, it's exceptionally difficult to get people to commit on a regular basis to any sort of informal activity. I spearheaded a 'movie night' with as much energy and enthusiasm as I could muster, and after months, could do no better than struggling to scrape up three or four a week. It was rather demoralizing, and I gave it up to spare myself the needless aging. Another thing was when an effort was put forward to field a softball league team. It went on and on, with the whole thing eventually falling through for lack of enough people. No, people I know manage only to stick to the things they must do, and those are so numerous and draining that there seems to be little left for frivolities.

Perhaps this is a question of maturity. We are all relatively young in the circles I with which I associate, few of us being far beyond thirty. I have recently mingled with some of those in my father's number while visiting for the holidays. Going back for what seems like quite some time, they have gathered once a week for coffee before work on Fridays. There's no binding commitment of any kind, and yet they are are as regular as if it were mandatory. I was obviously an interloper who all knew would not be seen again for some time, if at all, but was treated with great tolerance nonetheless.
I had a good time sitting with them and drinking coffee. I've written of my high regard for the morning and those who seize it. I consider those sitting in a coffee shop in the early hours of the morning to be elite people apart from whatever other merits they might possess, and these people have separate qualities to recommend them, you may be sure. These days, I mix with people who share a lot of my interests and can keep up, but this is a relatively recent development. It seems like it used to be the case that I had most of my stimulating conversations with adults. I guess all this sounds arrogant, but I don't know how to put it another way. Anyway, this morning I spent with my father's friends and co-workers made for quite enjoyable conversation. I must look into the validity of 'conversationalist' as a career.

I wish that the arrangement I describe was the rule at coffee shops and not the exception. It annoys me to no end that the largest group of those who patronize such shops are loners with laptops and piles of papers. Need it be said that this is a restaurant we are talking about and not your office? Much of that which ails the real estate industry can probably be traced to so-called business moguls who camp out for the price of a latte instead of leasing actual office space. Get lost, would you? While you're clicking away in service of something useless like making money, you're impairing our engagement in the industrious pursuit of socializing.