Recently in the back-up café, finding a table has been a problem at the weekends. They’re prioritising bookings. Big gatherings. That’s where the money is. From a business point of view, of course, I understand it. But as someone with a tiny social circle, it’s also irksome. A not insignificant chunk of their regulars are, like me, usually in there on their own. As a writer, I’m always people watching, trying to guess their lives, the path that has maybe led to them having a social circle that can rival my own in the underwhelming stakes. I sometimes wonder what people make of me being on my own most of the time.
Cafés are a big part of my life, as anyone who knows my work will already be aware of. It’s a cultural thing. It’s a thread back to my earliest days, growing up in a Spanish home where both my parents drank their coffee in glasses. The best way to have your coffee as far as I’m concerned. There were no mugs in our home, until about 1985 when I began collecting all the Roland Rat associated mugs that Woolies used to sell when The Rat (who I would have a Twitter spat with in 2011) was at the peak of his popularity.
In recent years, as my productivity dwindles and my life drifts, I haven’t always necessarily been in the cafés because I wanted to be, but because I knew it was important just to step out of the flat. The 18 months leading up to the pandemic were a torrid time for me on a personal level, one I never quite came through but one valuable lesson gleaned from that period was the need to get out every day, whether for a run or a coffee, even if I wasn’t writing. I learned to just head to the café with a book and be around people and noise, even if most of the time I wouldn’t be talking to anyone.
I can’t help thinking that by prioritising these big bookings and chasing the money brought in by these birthday parties, and often having to tell the solitary regulars like myself that they have no space, the back-up café is moving away from it was. A place for the community. A number of us in there often don’t have anywhere else to be.
When they can still accommodate the lone drinkers, I sometimes glance over at these big gatherings, remembering the big birthday parties my mum often threw for me, and I’m pleased that these little kids are having parties they will remember forever. I do wonder though if the adults overseeing these events have any empathy (maybe they don’t have the time for that) for those sitting alone while they are surrounded by their loved ones.
Someone said to me a while back the London is suffering from an epidemic of loneliness. That this came from a psychiatrist (I wasn’t seeing them in a patient capacity, for once, I’m pleased to say) who by night is a comedian, meant this stayed with me. Loneliness is such a crippling thing to experience and I know I’ve been experiencing it for well over a decade now. It’s just something that happened to my life that I was never able to correct. And in the evening, whether I’m gigging in front of 4 people or 150, it doesn’t change the fact all I’ve done is swap the loneliness of the flat for the solitariness of the stage.
Before the spring of 2013, the low points in my life were all linked the sudden bereavements that derailed my life. In 2013, stuck in a spiral of living in 16 homes in just 2.5 years as the housing crisis held me in its grip, I was in a sub-let in Peckham, living off-grid essentially. Around this time, I was waking up at the weekends beset by a feeling I hadn’t really experienced before. It would take me a few years to grasp that was loneliness. It can’t be linked to any of the losses I suffered. It’s just what’s happened to my life. It’s such a strange thing that this happened to me.
Perhaps going teetotal two days into January 2011 and sticking with it to this day impacted on my social life in a bigger way than I thought it would. All I know is that loneliness never disappeared and you can understand, when you go through it, how it can undo you both mentally and physically.
Do people lucky enough to be in relationships and/or enjoy big social circles grasp that there are many who don’t have that? If my situation ever changes, if I bow out from this world with an Indian Summer and a late-in-life social circle, I’ve promised myself I’ll never forget how alone I was for a big chunk of my life.
These days, I have a number of old friends I don’t see much of now as they settle into their new lives and circumstances, who will send me voice notes. Sometimes I return the notes, though I’m not a fan. A voice note is not a substitute for a real life friendship. I find them impersonal and often wonder if that’s what I’ve been reduced to, the hurried voice note. I think they are a further extension of the digital world which has changed all of us. So many seem to have time only for their phones. I had to make this clear to one friend in the last few days. I’m pleased they understood. Sure, it’s nice to hear from friends, but at the end of the day, you sending me a voice note isn’t going to make me feel any better.
To those people who are at the heart of those big gatherings, of course, enjoy your life. It’s important. But try maybe to have some empathy for those that might be sat across from your gathering, on their own, and who might not be alone through choice.
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