Do You Need a Hug, Sir?
Cafe Abir was crowded today when I went to try and squeeze out an article on airport redevelopment. I sat down in the corner next to a middle-aged man with a goatee and and a woman in her thirties. They were both clacking away at their laptops and I booted up mine while eating a pear.
"Will you please watch my laptop while I go the bathroom?" the woman asked the older man.
"Oh yes, of course," he said. "That's the extent of social interaction in this cafe: people asking other people to watch their laptops while they use the restroom."
We smiled politely at his anthropological shrewdness, I dug out my notepads and she went to pee.
Two hours later, the Internet started fading out and the guy with the goatee asks us:
"Are either of you having connection issues?"
"Do you mean with the Internet or generally?" the woman asked. Now I think she meant: just trouble loading webpages or trouble with email and everything that comes through the series of tubes. He took it another way:
"Well no, not generally. I mean, I'm having trouble connecting with you," he said pointedly. "But I just meant the Internet."
She left soon after that. Then I left, and he was still there, having trouble connecting.
