Stranger in a Strange Starbucks

Your new best friend for fifteen minutes.

“I’m a stranger here myself.”

I’m a big fan of coffee, so I don’t spend much time in Starbucks.

Kind of a burn, I know. I actually don’t have a gripe with Starbucks—whether anyone wants to admit it or not, the current coffee shop culture we have wouldn’t exist if they hadn’t come along. Prior to the emergence of that little green siren, a “coffee shop” was usually a small diner, cracked linoleum tables, greasy food, bad coffee. After, it was plush chairs and hip music, Italian terminology and a shortage of open electrical outlets.

The concept of Starbucks evolved out of the vision of Howard Schultz, and his philosophy of “the third place.” You had home. You had work. And in a healthy community you had a third place—a bar, a diner, the Veterans hall—where you could gather with and unwind with friends, share war stories, maybe do a little networking. Give Schultz some credit, his idea was to create a third place accessible to everyone. After all, kids can’t go to bars, non-veterans aren’t usually welcome in Veteran’s halls. Diners are a bit more flexible, but the breakfast, lunch, and dinner rush means they frown on folks just lingering to chat. Those seats need fresh butts in them, to keep things profitabel.

But, as Schultz envisioned it (using Italian espresso shops as his mental model), what the world needed was a place where the rich and the poor could both afford to spend time, where age wasn’t a factor or a limitation, where slices of society and culture could hang together regardless of political or spiritual or personal beliefs or perspectives.

So... this isn’t a history lesson about Starbucks, and it’s certainly not intended to be Starbucks apologetics. Just a bit of backstory, pulled from what I know about the brand. Some of it may even be right.

But the problem for me, with Starbucks, is that though it’s usually a very good “third place,” universally known and understood for what it is and what it offers... the coffee is usually terrible. Soulless. Burnt. Definitely overpriced. Maybe that’s why most people come for what is essentially “adult milkshakes,” and coffee is kind of secondary. Thirdary? Fourthdary? Nowhere near first place.

I’m not here to talk about the coffee though. I’m here to talk about strangers.

This is one of those days I get from time to time—nothing pressing on my schedule. Deadlines, sure, but the kind that can be done with a laptop, from any space I happen to occupy. Spaces with coffee preferred.

On days like this, I like to wander away from my office. It’s not always easy. My office is great. It’s beautiful. It’s filled with things that comfort and inspire me. It’s tailored precisely to me, my personality, my tastes, my style. My brand. It even has a view.

I love working from my space. But a little known fact about writers is that, as solitary as our work appears to be, we need the outside world to help inspire us. Every now and then, if we want to keep writing the people made of lines of little marks on the page, we need to interact out here in the honest-to-God three-dimensional world. Fresh air. Sunshine. The sound of real humans chattering and laughing and being with each other. Sometimes bad coffee.

This is one of those days for me, when I’ve packed my laptop and some other essentials into my leather satchel, hopped into the Bronco, and motored my way to an area I love to spend time in. Here in Austin, I have my pick of some really beautiful places. But sometimes, I just want the comfort of a mega retail environment, with my choice of shops and restaurants and amenities to help me shake up the gears and workings of my brain. So I like to come to the Domain. Think of it like a huge outdoor mall.

Writing novels depends on novelty, and in places like that you can literally stand in one place for a bit and listen and watch as hundreds of very novel people pass by. Snatches of conversation wash over you like stream water. Varieties of dress and hairstyle and adornment stand out like flashing beacons. You can pick up more human nuance in thirty minutes here than you could possibly cram into a character. That’s the sort of thing that helps make characters rich and textured and real.

Then there are the encounters with strangers.

I picked this Starbucks here in the Domain, because it’s spacious and has an eclectic clientele. I’ve been here before. There’s always a place to sit and work. There are usually outlets available. And, bonus, they’re a Reserve store. So though the coffee is still often not great, there’s a better variety of it, and sometimes some of it is at least decent.

I’m going to stop harping on the quality of their coffee. I’m starting to feel bad.

Today, when I sat down, I had to wedge myself into a spot that was a little crowded. And, to use the outlet, I had to break out my secret weapon—a small extension cable that has a pass-through. So I can plug my laptop in, and someone else can still plug into the same outlet. I am courteous in this way.

I sat and asked my neighbor if he’d mind if we shared an outlet, and he was absolutely cool with it. We plugged in, and I got to work.

A few minutes later, he asked me (really quite out of the blue) what I’m “up to” today. And that led to a conversation about writing. We also talked about his work. And we bonded a little over our shared faith.

The conversation was maybe 15 minutes at the most. We exchanged names. He found my website and says he’ll reach out. It was a pleasant encounter.

With a complete stranger.

The thing is, that happens more than you might think. Somehow, when I sit down in a public space like this, I will almost inevitably connect with someone. A quick comment, usually a corny joke, is often the ice breaker. But sometimes, like today, they reach out to me. No idea way. Nothing I said or did to prompt it. Just two strangers deciding to be best buds for a few minutes, like we came here for that conversation.

Maybe we did.

If there’s any moral or point to this story, I’d say it might be this: Connection is possible.

Common ground exists, and sometimes it’s just a tiny patch. A square foot you can barely stand on with both feet. But it can be the foundation of something. A chance to chat. An opportunity to opine. A reason to relate.

Sometimes, strangers treat you like strangers. Fair. That’s fair. It’s a tircky world, and trust comes slowly, if at all.

But sometimes... sometimes... the strangers are a friend. Even if only for fifteen minutes, over a cup of terrible coffee.

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A NOTE AT THE END

The stranger I met today just left, and so I said goodbye. And that was when he told me, “I’m having a baby today! They’re inducing at 1 o’clock!”

“Congratulations!” I exclaimed, shaking his hand, genuinely excited for this guy I’d never met before today. “You kind of buried the lede! We talked about your work and a bunch of other stuff, and the whole time you knew you were having a baby?”
“Yeah, this year is going to be a big year,” he said.

It is. Starting today, it definitely is.