i am intrigued at coffee shop etiquette.

right now i am sitting at a local coffee shop and all 9 tables have one person sitting down and either staring at a book or a computer screen.

of course there is the exception of the man in the white linen shirt and khakis attempting to flirt with the older lady with the "i voted" stickers on her laptop. I wonder if she got one sticker each time she voted or if she just grabbed a handful. i guess i'll never know. (if i was more like my apartment locator, i would just walk up and ask her. i'm seriously way too stuck in social norms like not talking to strangers. something to aspire to.)

what i think drives me the most crazy is when some guy sits at the table in front of you and ends up facing you (see diagram below). then, whether or not he's cute, you end up looking up to see if he's looking at his computer, or looking at you because you can feel it when someone is looking at you but it certainly isn't a science...and things just get awkward and i end up leaving.















or when someone is sitting behind you and can see your screen:















and they comment on the picture you've set as a background. usually, for me, it's something strange that has no explanation:













and then i awkwardly mumble something about my friends being really strange and how i don't really know what to say...and then i suddenly have somewhere i need to be and fast.

does this kind of thing happen to anyone else or am i somehow mistaken about social norms in a coffee shop?

another random story: the day after MJ died, the staff at this particular joint decided to express their grief by playing his music at really high decimals and not serving anyone who came to the register. i respected their decision and enjoyed not having to pay for coffee to use their internet, but many people were disgruntled. one man in particular found it nearly impossible to concentrate on his crossword puzzle and shouted at the staff to turn down the music which, of course, they couldn't hear what he was saying and ignored him until he left in a huff. really - in a huff.

anyway i guess the moral of these stories is that if you don't like the coffee shop you're in, it's up to you to leave.

i'll let you extrapolate the deeper meaning yourselves.