The Only Conversation
What draws me to this scene is the possibility that the empty chairs are the most sociable things in the room. They still face one another. They have not yet found a more convenient arrangement.
It is easy to blame the phones, but I am less certain that the device begins the loneliness. A screen offers company without the risk of an awkward opening, a misunderstood remark or a silence we must share. Perhaps loneliness is making technology irresistible. The question is how to make approaching another person feel possible again. A café supplies the chairs; it cannot quite supply the courage.