do you talk to strangers in airport bars?

Or train station bars. While examining yesterday's choices through today's lens may seem futile, it can be an illuminating exercise in self-reflection. And yes. I used to talk to everyone.

And what better time to look back and have a good think than the end of the year. A pedestrian idea for sure. But one of your most powerful tools is looking back with a clear eye. Choosing objective over subjective. Sitting still with your mistakes for a minute. And celebrating your successes for hours.

This will be my last newsletter of the year. To be fair not much will change between this weeks writing and next weeks writing but I feel a little cultural pressure to promise new things. Or maybe not. I have never responded well to pressure.

By the way here is today’s bedtime story! Don’t forget to SHARE, leave a ❤️ or comment after listening to tonights bedtime story so others can find the stories too - I believe everyone deserves a bedtime story, don’t you?

Alice . Ch IX. The Mock Turtle’s Story - a bedtime story

And while we are waiting for bedtime below is a piece I wrote years and years ago. About chatting to a stranger in a bar. This work has highlighted how our ability to trust and fully communicate has been eroded in the last few years.

When did we begin to distrust human connection.

When did we stop chatting to people in the supermarket. When did we stop sitting down in a cafe for a quick coffee. When did we stop having a glass of wine alone in a bar. I used to do this all the time. To write mainly. To chat with people too.

This was written in August 2011. (Soon we can call this a period drama, though there was no drama). In 2011 my phone still only did one thing at time. I certainly did not write on it like I am doing now. Elon Musk was living in a small rented apartment in Bel Air. Facebook was dominant, Instagram was taking off and Twitter was muscling in. On this day Steve Jobs had yet to resign. Obama was president. People like me felt hopeful. The Pandemic was years in the future, a word we did not even have in our vocabularies. I was reading scripts for a living. Politicians did not use foul language on social media platforms. Netflix was a DVD rental service. My milk cow was positive and I raised sheep. Taylor Swift was 21 years old and Adele was top of the pops.

And I was alone in the big city. Blissfully.

I was 51 and steaming through life. And even after all the experiences I had encountered as a single mum and working woman I still thought chatting with strangers was kind of sweet.

Reading backwards with a new and maybe more cynical eye is frightening sometimes. Are we so jaded now - in 2024. Or are we just more grown-up.

Read on:

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You see, I had this interesting experience in Chicago on the weekend. I had walked from the Metra Station to the Union Station to catch my last train back down into the country. I had an hour to spare so I decided to sit down with my notebook and catch up on a few thoughts. When I travel, my favourite places to write are busy cafe’s or bars. So I found a little bar in the Union Station terminal. Quite ghastly but dimly lit, which frankly I prefer in a bar. I hate brightly lit bars, why do they do that?

I ordered a beer. Then almost bumped into a guy standing close behind me as I turned away from the bar. At a glimpse this guy had an uncanny resemblance to an actor whose name I just cannot remember, you know the guy, he was in that thing, that one with the girl singer. What was that girl’s name? It starts with B. Anyway he apologised, I accepted and moved away.

He sat at a table opposite mine, across the small room but facing me. He caught my eye as I looked up from my book. (oops, eye contact, bad) Just one eye though as he was talking on his phone. After a bit I went back to the bar to get another beer (it had been a long hot day in the city) and with his phone at his ear, he raised his voice and called out “Put it on my tab!” to the woman behind the bar. I smiled at the bartender, (widening my eyes to her, like… shout across the bar why don’t you .. we both know your sort.. silent laughter). She laughed out loud and handed me the cold beer.

Although I had not been asked if I wanted him to buy me a drink, I thanked him with a tip of the cold frosty bottle, (he was still on his phone) and went back to my writing. A number of minutes later, he said goodbye to his phone, stood, walked across to my table and said he hoped I was not upset that he bought me a drink.

I looked up from my note-book, laid down my pen. Pushed my chair back to get out of his space, which had been my space – he was just a little too close - and told him quite truthfully that No, I was in a bar, having a drink was not that unusual in a bar. And him buying me a drink was very kind and thank you very much. It was the manner in which he bought me the beer that was slightly less than clever. I mean one does not buy a grown woman a drink while talking to someone else on a phone. I smiled. He had been brave. I flashed my diamonds around. My bangles fell down my arm with musical concertina jingles. That usually calms them down a bit.

We spent a pleasant few minutes having an old-fashioned chat about not very much. I mean if a guy buys a girl a drink and she accepts - and I think it is nice to - then he gets a couple or three minutes. As well as that, when you get to a certain age it doesn’t matter who buys the drink.

Then he said can I tell you something and I paused, somewhat apprehensively, turning my watch around my wrist so I could see it better, (your three minutes is ticking buddy) and said you can tell me anything you like because we will never see each other again. He blinked at that but took it well. It turned out that he had seen me at the Metra station on Millenium (that is 5 blocks away) and just happened to be walking in the same direction, behind me, (oh really, I thought) and although he was catching a bus (a bus?) he came into the railway station to have a quick drink. (my left eyebrow raised ever so slightly). Then wow, he saw me again. (Oh goodness, what a coincidence. Both eyebrows up by now) So he bought me a beer, it being a hot day and all. (Hmm. Well. OK…I had a stalker, an unusually honest stalker, who wore baggy shorts and looked like a guy in a movie but nevertheless .

He was a little earnest but not a crashing bore. And very good looking. A little bit Marlboro man gone to seed, a little bit Kris Kristofferson without the beard. He introduced himself, we shook. I immediately forgot his name. All very civilised. His feet fiddled as he talked. I left him standing. I folded my hands across my books. He answered my questions about his kids (two, both in college studying law and medicine) and his job, (retired but travels a lot just been to a conference on something) and oh your grandparents are from Germany how interesting, I zoned in and out. His wife was off the scene I gathered but one never knows. Men lie.

If he had been too dull or even slightly lewd I would have said thank you so much for the drink, it was lovely to talk to you and now I really need to finish this piece of work. I would have placed my glass firmly back on the table, wiped my hands, picked up my pen and allowed the contact to drop. He would have had his three minutes of polite nodding and small smiles. Then the cut-off. I think it does not hurt to be polite. Yet Firm. But I was still trying to digest his having followed me here. I mean that took a little thinking about.

But maybe he was just one of those much maligned nice guys. And there was nothing on television. He actually really seemed like a nice fellow, so he got twenty minutes, I allowed him to sit and I took another sip of my beer. And once he got over his fear of me taking offence he became a bit more interesting. And it was a perfectly cool interlude in a busy day. Soon I began to slowly pack away my book and pens and he got the hint and thanked me genuinely for talking with him. Oh and evidently I am quite striking and have a distinctive walk. I wasn’t going to argue though was I, that would have been rude. Even if he had followed me half way across town. And what does striking really mean anyway? I am not sure I want to be striking. But I was determined to be kind. Why is that so hard? I mean why can’t a guy buy a girl a drink, have a little chat without a keyboard without the anonymity of a keyboard and then off we all go.

And NO, I really did not think we had time to eat before my train, and didn’t he have a bus to catch? ( Oh yeah that’s right.) So, off he went.

The moment he was around the corner I upped sticks and smartly decamped to my gate to wait for my train. I waited quietly surrounded by about 300 noisy co-travellers and wondered.

Two people can stop and just talk can’t they? Mostly this is what people want when they buy each other a drink. So why are guys afraid to buy a girl a drink nowadays? Are the girls so lacking in confidence that they feel they cannot control a small exchange of words? Have they become harsh with fright? Why are we dubious about accepting a drink even from a fairly harmless stalker guy. We can manage them, can’t we? A bar is comparatively safe. Compared to a park or the street for instance. Bars and cafes are where we meet people. Men are not all bad. ‘No’, is a very useful word if an unpleasant connotation enters your conversation. Be clear.

If you do not want to accept a drink or a conversation, smile confidently and say Thank You, No. Give no reason. No discussion. Just No. Smile and move aside quickly. Be kind but firm.

Or and I know this is an outrageous thought. Have a chat. You might enjoy yourselves. One day you may even meet a friend who was as stranger.

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The loneliness and aloneness of ordinary and often very intelligent and lovely people is escalating. It is making people sick. We are looking for friendships with our keyboards, with emojis on phones, without eye contact. No wonder we are all so shy and insular, struggling with real conversations in real life situations.

And looking back on this - I think about how far women have come since 2011 and how we must be so incredibly careful not to lose ground. Women are physically vulnerable: men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them - that is true. But we can be incredibly strong, us women, steely strong when we allow ourselves to be. In fact we can be striking. We should not cripple our own lives out of fear. We should not resort to cruel words. But neither should we be naive.

We were not handed our strength by right. We had to fight for it. Our Mums and our Grandmothers fought like dogs for what we have now. My grandmother could never sit in a bar. In her day the country pubs had women’s lounge rooms. The men’s bar was out of bounds. She was not allowed to own a house so she demanded that she would own the car, even though she was not allowed to drive.

She had her own savings account at the Post Office because she was legally not allowed to open a bank account in town by herself. She was one of the few women of her generation that requested separate accounts so she could control her own money and her husband did not have access to it. She believed a woman’s body was her own and her money was too.

Where am I going with this thought, here in the last gasps of 2024?

Maybe I want to say - Don’t let them put us back in a box. Even though we are the ones to save the bananas. Stay strong enough to have a lovely chat with a stranger in a bar then move along without harm. Keep your power. You earned it.

Happy Sunday out there in the Northern Hemisphere. It is Monday here in Australia as I write.

Quite alone.

Celi