Cafe confessions: Do they think we can't hear?

Bellower at Table 1 gasses about his $13 million deal; mom in window seat whinges about overweight daughter; everyone else is rapt.

from the July 20, 2007 edition

Page 2 of 3

Page 1 | 2 | Page 3

"The point of public space is ... that we get to know each other," Simon argues. We see different people in a different context and become tolerant of them."

I confess that I do my fair share of blabbing in public, and he makes a confession of his own: He is walking down the street and talking to me on his cellphone.

***

Overheard in a small, bustling Boston Starbucks (names changed): "Mike, hi, it's John Smith. On your question about the ... real estate and the $13 million? ... This might be too small to take on. But give me a call. My number is..."

What makes a guy like this feel no need to lower his bellowing voice – when I'm sitting right next to him – is what makes most people cavalier about their confessions, even when money isn't on the line: I have no idea who you are or, probably, who you're talking about. So it's not a big deal to a big bank investor if I hear details about million-dollar deals. (More touchy might be that I also hear the full names of his clients, but get only the investor's phone number, so it would be at least marginally challenging for me to, say, perpetrate fraud.)

And it's only mildly engaging to watch a barista on her break talk soothingly to her worried boyfriend, because I can't tell what he's worried about. He might have lost his job. He might have lost his mother. He might have lost his cellphone. And if I can't tell, what harm can I, a stranger, really do?

"We're no longer a community where you worry about whether others are going to hear what you say," says Benet Davetian, director of the Civility Institute on Prince Edward Island. "With anonymity, people dispense with a lot of the civility rituals."

The only problem with indulging our illusions of anonymity is this: People who start as strangers might not become fast friends, but they can rapidly become liabilities. As when, for instance, at a Starbucks two blocks down the road, I see the barista's boyfriend. Flirting with another barista.

Overheard at a suburban Boston Starbucks, two tables away from the leather couch where a business owner – tall, big-bellied, booming – and his mild-mannered investment adviser talk, unconcerned about the other half-dozen customers.

1 | Page 2 | 3 | Next Page