I spent a lot of today in a coffee shop. It's such a weird setting to be in. Well, for a single anyways. Well, for me anyways. I can't help but look around and wonder what everyone else is doing. It looks like they're meeting people here. It's never a place to come for the coffee. The product they serve is more of an activity to partake in with other people. It's a starting point for conversation and sharing.

What does this say about our ability to connect with others? Does it mean we always need some medium in which to be ourselves, in which to talk to other people? Why can't there be a public space, like a square room with nothing in it, to just meet and chat? This of course takes up valuable space that would otherwise be used for a business. You can't pay rent by giving away free space. Still, there are plenty of public spaces people can meet in. Why don't we go to the park more often to socialize? Or the beach, or just walking around the neighborhood? People do these things, but the cafe is still a staple in everyone's lives.

Maybe it's a way for us to exercise our wallets. It gives us something to buy and show how wealthy we are, that we can buy a cup of coffee that we don't need to furnish an activity that doesn't particularly require any outside factors. There are a lot of things in life that we buy to supplement an activity that doesn't really need it. Driving requires little more than a working car, but rims, paint jobs, accessories, ornaments, lights, and all sorts of decorations are popular with car owners. Even the car itself is often bigger than it needs to be to contain the one or two people that are usually in it.

The cafe is really a sort of identity. We choose a cafe that is decorated and fitted to attract a "cool" crowd. It is hip in its presentation, and therefore attracts the young, hip crowd. We enter this space and then feel like we are a part of this crowd. I am going to think more about this idea that entering a space gives us an identity.