It’s contradictory to sit alone in a café. It’s against the reason cafés exist.

They are designed as meeting spaces. There is no table with a single chair. Even the ones placed right by the window with high seating are big tables with many chairs.

Cafés are community spaces. Most go there to see their loved ones, friends, or colleagues.

You find only a few people sitting alone. Most are buried in their laptops, working hard to make a living in their own worlds, whatever world they have.

I rarely do that.

When I took time off from work, I chose a staycation. Unlike most of my friends, who visited Japan in 2025.

When I heard their experiences, I was jealous. When I told them my staycation plans of doing nothing for four weeks, they were jealous.

While off work, I wanted to slow time down as much as I could. The best way to freeze time, I read somewhere, is to get a dog. Luckily, I have one already. So, I took long walks with my dog.

What used to feel like 10 minutes between breakfast and lunch while working became a full-blown day. Even though I was spending two hours walking my dog instead of a 30-40 minute rush, it felt like an eternity. A peaceful eternity.

On the second day, I decided to leave my phone at home, so I lived those two hours to the fullest. I didn’t take any device that could connect me to the internet or to other people.

I was nervous.

But all the anxiety evaporated after 30 minutes.

I felt free, so to speak.

It wasn’t that nobody could reach out to me that felt like an escape; it was that I couldn’t reach out to anyone or anything that caused the turmoil.

I had no possibility to text anyone. No possibility to watch or read. No chance to look up anything to fulfill my curiosity.

My mind was alone after a long time.

There were a few moments I put my hand into my pocket to take out my phone to look up something I was curious about. My phone wasn’t there.

I smiled. Every. Single. Time.

On the second day, I randomly walked into a neighborhood café. I ordered an americano with a double shot of espresso.

Sipping a hot americano feels different when you are in a rush to catch a subway. Its purpose is to wake you up. A sip from that little hole in a single-use cap burns my tongue every time. I despise that.

With a porcelain cup, you don’t have that. Coffee changes its purpose. It becomes a pleasure.

I sat down with a proper cup of americano. My dog crawled under the table.

I was sitting alone in a café with a dog that had crawled under the table without any electronics that could distract me.

Distract me from, basically, nothing.

It was pure delight. Every element. Or rather, the non-existence of any element. No phone. No headphones. No tablet. No laptop.

My mind was just drifting with the chatter in the café. I left myself to the flow.

When you let your thoughts wander, they take you on a journey you’ll never think possible. You reflect on the smallest details of your fast life. Your brain absorbs all the mistakes you’ve made. You accept that you can’t change failures anymore, as much as you feel guilty.

You might as well not worry about them and focus on what you can change: what you do now. And what you will do next.

Nothing else.

The next day, I left my phone at home again and decided to stop by the same café. I was lucky; I sat down at the same table.

Sitting alone in a café without distractions reveals a lot about people. The same people you pass by in a split second while rushing from home to work, from a meeting to a meeting. The invisible suddenly appears right in front of you. People don’t go away in two seconds. They stay. They sip a coffee. They talk with others, laugh, cry, and worry. Oh, worry.

Worry is only visible in people’s eyes. Eyes are the channel of the heart. You have to close your ears and look at people’s eyes to see their hearts.

You realize that looking into eyes is frightening—both for you and the other person. You try to avoid it, but eventually make eye contact because nobody is physically moving anywhere.

As none of you are passing by in a second, you mimic looking at something else. They continue their conversation. But you saw their worry, and you can’t help but try to understand.

You leave the café to avoid making things awkward.

I went there the next day. This time, my table was occupied. I don’t know when it became my table. But it felt like that. I found another one. It was closer to the staff.

Sitting alone in a café without distractions shows you how a café works. You never contemplate how they operate behind that giant coffee machine while you’re waiting for your coffee before you run to catch the next bus, tram, subway, or taxi. You never ruminate when you sip from a single-use cup and burn your tongue.

You notice how the staff circulates porcelain cups, from dirty to clean, to the top of the coffee machine. You observe the staff’s reactions to each customer. You try to analyze if someone is a regular by noticing how the staff talks.

You wonder whether they consider you a regular, since you’ve been there for the last couple of days. Or they call you a creepy guy with a dog. You will never know. You’re not fine with never knowing.

You promise yourself to come the next day to observe how the staff talks to you.

I again went to the same café. Unlucky me. A different staff were working on that day. Yet I ordered the same: a cup of americano with a double shot of espresso.

Sitting alone in a café without distractions, with a dog that had crawled under the table, brings a light to a truth: you can’t control or influence other people’s thoughts and feelings, no matter what you do. Staff may think of you as a weirdo with a dog; your friends might want to be in your place; your family might be nervous because they can’t reach out to you.

You know you can’t change any of those unless you change who you are. It makes you feel alone and powerless.

You are alone and powerless. You encounter a deep challenge.

The next day, I didn’t go to the café. I instead took an even longer walk. I went there the following day, knowing I had faced that challenge in my longest walk.

Sitting alone in a café without distractions shows everyone you’re alone.

It’s an alone act.

A scary but powerful one.

Many avoid at all costs. That’s why everybody looks at you with wondering eyes. They are afraid of your powerful joy. They can’t grasp why someone would do this to themselves. They are hesitant but are thinking of doing the same.

Then you realize you’re planting thoughts in people’s minds that you can’t control. Feelings are feelings. Thoughts are thoughts.

Just at the moment you think you are alone again, you see another weirdo across the café sitting alone without distractions. That weirdo is looking at your sleeping-in-a-croissant-shape dog under the table. Weirdo is enjoying the moment, while your dog is on an adventure in her second dream.

You smile. You know you’re not alone. You are one weirdo sitting at a distance from one other. You know there are many.

Maybe one of them is reading this and feeling heard. Perhaps one will never see this and will always feel alone. But it only needs one look around. You glance over the café and leave with a smile.

The next day, I went there again. This time, I put in an intentional distraction. A good one.

Sitting alone in a café without distractions only gets better when there is something to write on. Not with a keyboard. You must use your single hand to write, not two. Ideally, with a pen on paper.

The pen is meant to slow you down. The words shouldn’t land on paper at the speed of thinking or even talking.

The writing must hurt your wrist or hand. It must turn into a burden. That pain is a signal telling you that you have written long enough. Maybe you wrote only five lines. Perhaps one thousand.

It doesn’t matter.

You take a break.