A Lesson in Loneliness Through Coffee

The sun will be shining, the flowers still are blooming, the leaves will turn again, but time will be frozen for us

Time will be frozen for us

As I listen to contemporary R&B singer Sabrina Claudio croon through the hidden speakers, I twirl my pen through my fingers and can’t help but reflect somewhat darkly on the many times I wished time would move faster. I pull myself back to the present and look around at the now bustling café. The lunchtime rush has created an animated atmosphere that crackles through the espresso-scented air; the cheerful chatter of caffeinated patrons interweaves with the mellow tunes still playing and the baristas are furiously trying to pull shots in time with the growing queue. Time is definitely not frozen here, yet I feel curiously removed from the bustle and hustle, sitting alone at a table capable of seating four. Seeing the emotional wreck that this kind of thinking might potentially lead to, I end my train of thought with the conclusion that time is definitely relative and mentally shift gears. I sip at my cold Americano, revive my darkened computer screen, and resume coughing out ideas for my latest written piece.

There’s something intrinsically productive about the space inside a café. It’s not just the motivation that’s delivered by a healthy caffeine buzz, although that likely is a contributing factor. It’s the pace at which things are always moving—baristas’ hands fluttering like well-trained birds over the coffee machines, liquid constantly pouring in measured streams, mouths talking animatedly, music methodically infusing the silence, and minds determinedly pushing out ideas onto laptop screens and journals—that makes one feel like life is moving forward. The pace at which a café moves can be an irregular pattern of lulls and crescendos, but the important thing is that it keeps moving from the time it opens to the time it closes. There’s a distinct solace found in the midst of this impersonal yet cozy flurry of action. Everyone within this space is separated by the demands of their own lives yet part of one community, temporarily linked by the laws of hospitality and the camaraderie of communal consumption of caffeinated, baked, and most likely sugary, sustenance.  

The interesting thing about cafés is that they can be multiple things at once as well as a different space for different people. A café can be the place to go if one desires to practice the art of making small talk alongside professional coffee-making, making it a factory for producing social confidence and latte-pouring skills. A successful example of this is Sho Kitamoto, one of the many friendly baristas at Nemesis Coffee. A soft-spoken yet occasionally exuberant character, he reveals to me almost embarrassedly over our half-drunk glasses of cappuccino, “I’m more powerful when I work. I can be friends with many people.” I nod emphatically in a show of solidarity, because it was a transformation I noticed in myself through my years of working in cafés. Despite my naturally reserved personality, a more outgoing and confident version of myself emerges when I work behind the coffee bar: my laughter becomes easier and louder, my quirks emerge unapologetically in the snatches of conversations with customers over the espresso machine, and making small talk becomes second nature. A thought passes through my mind at Sho’s comment: what if this mutual blossoming of character is due to the conservative Asian culture and values we both grew up with? Having grown up in a Taiwanese household in Surrey, BC, I had no accurate picture of how the customer service element of serving coffee might be different in Asia. When I pose this question to Sho, with the assumption that his experience having lived in Japan for most of his life would broaden my views, he answers that North Americans have a more social attitude towards coffee, as opposed to the home-based omotenashi culture in Japan. He found the experience of drinking and making coffee in Vancouver to be a more communal experience centred around the idea of cultivating an appreciative community for the experience of the drink itself. He noticed that a fundamental principle in coffee culture is the idea of sharing (which in itself is a social act), whether it’s an actual caffeinated beverage or conversation with another person, be it customer, barista, friend, or professional client.

“Making coffee is the easy part,” says Sho with a wry smile. “Talking to customers is the hardest part.” But to him, the latter is no doubt the more rewarding. These words resonated particularly true with me, especially when I think of the fragile relationships I’ve struggled to build through stilted and awkward interactions over the till.

Speaking of awkward social interactions, a café can also be the place to go if one desires to be surrounded by other people and simultaneously escape from unwanted social interactions, making it an oasis for introspection and a watering hole for creativity. Personally, I’ve always been drawn to cafés because, for the few hours I am there, they magically relieve me of the abject loneliness that follows the failure of finding the right friends. And through many years of my undergrad, I was incredibly lonely. I spent much of my time working or simply sitting in cafés, because being lonely in public seemed more dignified than being lonely curled up in bed at home, and it was always during those crushing times at home when I would beg time to move faster. Maybe Sabrina Claudio was happy with where she was in life, but I certainly wasn’t. For someone who is introverted yet lonely like me, the café is the perfect nesting environment: one is never alone and simultaneously never obligated to participate in social interactions. It’s the best kind of middle ground, a comfortable limbo.

But the problem with being in limbo is that at some point, you’ll want to get out of it. You’ll feel driven to distinguish the shades of grey into a solid black or white. A “maybe” or “kind of” is only sufficient for so long until you need to know if the path you’re going down is a “yes” or a “no”, and eventually I realized I didn’t want to be only semi-included in society. I wanted a community to see me and embrace me as one of their own. I wanted a “yes.”

After this little epiphany, my life became a series of speed dates, hopping from one café to another both for work and for my own leisure. Sometimes I stayed with one for a week, other times I was committed to one specific place for months. The longest time I spent working at a café was two and a half years, but it never felt completely like the “yes” I was looking for. Despite the acquaintances and friendships I made during my time there, that café never felt like the home I was searching for.

It’s interesting how a home is not necessarily the place in which you grew up, but an ideal you find yourself searching for—and I searched through many pretty, coffee-and-butter-scented cafés for mine: in the shapes and balance of their cups and saucers, the trendy paintings stoically decorating the walls, the ambiance cultivated by the music filtering through the air, and the perfect feng shui of the assembled tables and chairs. Most of all, I looked for a reflection of myself in the bright, yet sometimes disappointingly ingenuine, smiles of the baristas behind the counters. Even during my backpacking trip in Europe last year, my itinerary was filled with numerous cafes that I wanted to try, and while each one proved to encompass a tiny, coffee-scented world of its own, buzzing with its own unique aesthetic and personalities, none of them could ever be home. It was impossible when I had to return to Canada. So, back home in Vancouver, I continued my search, albeit with less excitement and expectation than before. I visited all the chains, all the independently owned coffee shops, still trying to find one that felt right, like it could be the safe place, among safe people, in which I can heal the festering loneliness inside me.

Why, though? Why cafés, specifically? This was a deceptively simple question that had been dogging me throughout my entire quest. What is so special and essential about them that I keep seeking them out?

Fast-forward four years later: on the fringe of the Gastown neighbourhood in downtown Vancouver, glints a gem of a café called Nemesis. While the name suggests an unfriendly demeanor or façade, the staff is anything but. The front-of-house staff all possess an uncanny ability to remember your name after just a few visits, making you feel like you’re a friend as opposed to a sleep-deprived customer. Bolstered by this positive energy and fed up with the festering loneliness growing inside me, I begin chatting with every barista on shift during my visits. Eventually, a blurry answer to my existential question began to coagulate somewhere behind my constant layer of loneliness. This answer finally formed a coherent shape during my sunny afternoon with Sho.

Sho possesses a fairly solid background in café customer service, so I ask him about his professional goals, to which he replies, “I want to create a place where customers can be happy. I like coffee, but it’s not the most important thing for me. Communication is the most important.” A brief silence. For some reason, I refrained from filling it. “I want to make customers smile. I want to make customers feel like they’re at home,” Sho finishes simply.

His easy smile betrays the depth of his sincerity, but I could sense it in his voice, and without any knowledge of the personal struggles I was wrestling with, he had managed to indirectly answer the question I’d been pondering for the last few years in a matter of seconds. In searching for a sense of belonging out in the big, wide world, I was inadvertently trying to find an answer to why my definition of home was so intricately tied to the consumption of food and drink, and his attitude towards hospitality and customer service enforces the notion that coffee is not just a beverage but a reason and a means to establish community; coffee is a product through which people are brought together in conversation and shared passion. People build a space around this drink to celebrate the joys and lows of human relationships, to satisfy and encourage gastronomical appreciation, to share ideas and stories, to cultivate relationships, to have a place where anyone can feel welcome. This kind of space parallels the metaphysical foundations of a home and in a lyrical sense, it is a kind of home. A café is a home for the lonely. The travelers. The artists. The gastronomically-inclined. It is a real-life Room of Requirement, serving as a library, an office, a kitchen, a watering hole, or a studio to satisfy the needs that any given individual brings when he or she walks in through the door. It is a home, because it will welcome all.