Stage 1, Shock - "What the fuck!? Who the hell are these kids and what the hell is wrong with them that they dress like this!?"

Stage 2, Denial (of good service) - "This can't be happening, not on my shift! I didn't do anything to deserve this. If I just act like this is not happening maybe it will all go away"

Stage 3, Anger - "Those fucking shits stayed here for 5 hours drinking coffee and the most they ordered was french fries god dammit!"

Stage 4, Acceptance - "Damn, it's almost 1:30, better push the tables together, the damned freaks will be coming in again"

Stage 5, Free Food - "Hey! How was the club tonight guys? Your usual tables? Don't worry about the drinks, manager's gone tonight, they're on the house"

Once they figured out we were mostly harmless and entirely amusing we were usually made welcome. There was a good span of 4 years where I never paid for a full meal at Dennys' due to my close association with the wait staff. There was also about 7 years where I didn't pay for Taco Bell because the drive through guy was telling me about all the times girls have flashed him in the drive through.

"Well, did you give them free tacos for the free show?" I asked. He advised me that no, they usually whipped out their tits and then drove off, but that hell yes, if any of them had stuck around he surely would have begifted them some tacos. At that point the girl I was dating took off her shirt and we didn't pay for tacos for a VERY long time after that.

At any rate, Desiree and I were at Dennys' tonight and there was an older woman eating alone. I hate to say this, but I don't think there is any circle of hell on earth that is darker than eating alone at a social establishment on a night like tonight. What does one do in their lifetime to warrant that kind of a moment?

Maybe it's fine, maybe the people who eat alone don't care, but I don't think so. You can eat alone at home for a lot cheaper, it always seems like some sort of silent torture, watching others socialize and laugh while you stare at your own food, alone. If things were different maybe a friend would be walking through the door to give them a joyous greeting, but that doesn't happen. Maybe this fucks with me because it brings me back to my past, sitting alone in the lunch room, too unpopular for anyone to be seen with, just wishing there wasn't a lunch break in the school day. I seriously spent that time wishing there was some corner to hide in, or some place to go that I didn't have to be so accutely reminded that the only person in the world that didn't hate me was the person who packed the lunch I was now eating alone.

And then it hits me...something shitty has been growing in this world, and I'm a part of it. Even as I watched and wondered, I was a part of it. The other night I went to a focus group (I do them every couple of months to get extra cash) and while we were waiting to go into the meeting room NO ONE was talking. Every person in the place was sitting there on their cell phones, texting, surfing, doing anything to ignore the other humans in the room. When did we become this? When did it become acceptable to ignore the living human beings around you so you could concentrate on some shitty piece of plastic and artifical synapses? Fuck this. I am getting farther away from the kid who ate alone, and closer to the fucks who isolated and segregated my kind in grade school. I don't have that attitude, but it feels like the social trends in society have moved me closer to it by association and I am sick of it.

I don't spend my time ignoring the world for my crappy technology, but you know, in a way I am no better because I do it to be alone with my thoughts. We're all getting worse, less friendly and more self absorbed. Less likely to strike up a conversation and more prone to finding something in our pockets to distract us from real life interactions and social graces. Fuck whether your dumb ass can find a street view of the intersection your at right now, can you walk up to another human being and say hello?

This all kind of leads back to me watching someone alone at dinner in Dennys'. The central point here is this- it's a personal resolution. It's nothing big, I'm not leading any great revolution, I don't need a pat on the back, I'm not doing it because it's some altruistic, selfless act, but from now on when I see someone eating alone I am going to go talk to them. I don't care if they want it or not, they are getting some social interaction. I wont let someone else be the lone kid in the lunchroom if I'm around.