I sat by myself at the bar at Pine Cone Ridge waiting for some friends and also for the barman to notice me. As far as I could tell, I was the barfly equivalent of The Invisible Woman.
I knew better than to gesticulate wildly or yell out, so I just sat there waiting for him to look up from the other end of the bar where he was preparing a cluster of Aperol spritzes with all the focus of a cardiac surgeon.
Something about being alone and feeling awkward reminded me of the days when instead of fiddling on an iPhone, people smoked. There was a confidence — however faux it may have been — in holding a Marlboro Light and casually blowing rings that wafted into a cloud of blue smoke over the bar. An air of nonchalance that made a woman feel less like she was looking for Mr. Goodbar and more like she was waiting for Mr. Bogart.
Now before you go all self-righteous on me, please know that I quit smoking over 20 years ago and I still consider it one of the best things I ever did for myself. Still, there was just something about a cigarette that made the experience of sitting alone at a bar not feel desperate but somehow communal instead.
Suddenly, from behind me, a man’s booming voice jolted me out of my reverie. “No, I’m not talking about my second wife,” he intoned at a volume I estimated to be about 87 decibels. “I mean my third wife.” Clearly, his dinner guests stood corrected on this and many other topics.
Not to be outdone, a woman holding court at another four-top behind me could be heard giving a Ted Talk on the pros and cons of solar farms and something about circling back to put a pin in some low hanging fruit.
I furtively glanced over my shoulder to suss it out. By the looks on her companions’ faces, this was a work dinner and there was no question who was the boss. Still, it was hard to tell if they were raptly listening or just sleeping like lizards.
Next to me at the bar sat a couple, maybe on a Bumble date. The man read the menu aloud for his lady friend — and anyone else within a 75-foot radius.
The whole bar felt like a fever dream of a “Seinfeld” episode or maybe a version of hell where the Loud Talker, The Movie-Ending Teller, The One-Upper and The Person Explaining Something Nobody Asked About all came together at once. None of them appeared to have come to dinner. They had come to present.
With all of these people dominating conversations, it was impossible not to wonder whether anyone actually listens anymore. Maybe we’re all just waiting for our turn to expound. Not just mere mortals — apparently, we all have a version of the new loud talker on our iPhones. And whether their name is Chat or Claude or Siri, they’re just as omnipresent.
Ever since AI entered the chat, it’s like we invited one more person to every dinner table, the ultimate mansplainer. One minute you’re discussing vacation plans. The next, someone says, “Let’s ask Chat.” And suddenly six perfectly intelligent human beings turn off their brains while everyone waits intently for the glowing oracle to hold forth.
The funny thing is, a version of this really happened after my friends finally arrived at Pine Cone and we were seated at our own four-top in the bar. My friend Matt was talking about how he asked AI how it actually, actually works. He was very specific about the “actually, actually” phrasing.
I have to admit, I read Chat’s answer with genuine curiosity. And it was indeed compelling enough that the rest of us decided to enter the same question to our own version of Chat. Each answer was different, yet equally compelling. Suddenly, The Most Interesting Man in the World wasn’t a man at all.
But don’t you wonder what makes someone interesting in the first place? Somewhere along the line, we’ve become obsessed with having the smartest thing to say. But maybe the most interesting person in the room is simply the one who makes everyone else want to keep talking.
The next morning, I sat alone on my balcony drinking coffee, my thoughts suddenly interrupted by a cacophony of birds in some lilac bushes next to me. They were chirping in chorus, each with something so important to say, it couldn’t wait for a pause.
I couldn’t help but listen — at least until the noise dwindled down to just a few tentative tweets before all fell silent. And for the moment, it was just me and my thoughts.