People in big cities are afraid to talk with strangers, but they are also hungry for connection.
You see it in a Starbucks if you dare to say anything friendly at all. Anything. To just about anyone who is sitting alone.
Suddenly you have a torrent of dialog coming at you, as though a dam has burst.
It’s kinda funny and kinda sad at the same time.
This morning, there was a lady in one of the Starbucks easy chairs when I arrived. Over an hour later, as she was packing up her newspaper and gathering her trash, I said with a smile, “Leaving so soon?”
She smiled, laughed, and then opened up.
It turned into a 45-minute conversation. I now know that the woman – Therese – is an RN with a private client, an architect, and that she lived seven years in Glendale but now lives in Los Feliz and hates shiatsu massages but loves Swedish massages, and knows a doctor who runs in 100-mile races, and…
All because of a three-word greeting.
She left with a smile that wasn’t there before.
And that’s cool.
Starbucking 
Cool post.
Thanks, winter. Have a memorable day. In a good way, of course.
I like that you chose to write about this, because it’s so down-to-earth and human and yet seems so mundane that people wouldn’t normally think to write or talk about it. I believe that, in general, our society seems to have lost “community” and there are a lot of lonely people out there. Great post, Ric!
Thanks, Lorie. I agree; the common actions of community are missing in many places. Maybe it’s still there in small towns, but not so much in the city.