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Two book-inspired blogs in a row? I guess that's what a few back-to-back airplane trips does for me-brings out the reading material! And though the most recent book was business related, you can leave it to me to always find a connection from any subject to women and our fabulous friendships. LOL!
Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks tells the story of how this underdog coffee bean retailer became the world-recognized brand that it is today in his book, Pour Your Heart Into It.
The Starbucks Story
Hard to imagine a time when investors and critics were convinced that the desire for specialty coffee would remain niche with very few people enjoying it or willing to pay money for the flavor. So while the road was initially uphill for Starbucks, their belief that once Americans tried the dark-roasted beans, they would learn to love espresso drinks. Hand-in-hand with their vision for quality coffee was also their desire to create places of "social connection" where they imported the Italian cafes to America. Now with their sign on every corner (not to mention all the smaller cafes that followed in their footsteps) most of us wouldn't want to imagine a world without our coffee houses.
Apparently, pre-Starbucks, we were losing our places to hang out and socialize? There may have been a time where we all saw our neighbors regularly at the barber shop, the post office or the local diner, catching up on life regularly. But gone were those days in most parts of the country. Germany had its beer gardens, England its pubs and Europe its cafes. And Starbucks saw the opportunity, creating spaces that they hoped would become "Your Third Place" after home and work.
Says Ray Oldenburg, a sociology professor in his book The Great Good Place:
"Without such places, the urban area fails to nourish the kinds of relationships and diversity of human contact that are the essence of the city. Deprived of these settings, people remain lonely within their crowds."
But a lot has happened since 1989 when Oldenburg wrote his book. I'm not sure simply having these places is the answer anymore.
Craving It: Lonely Within The Crowds
Cafes have certainly been social hubs for me of some of my most meaningful conversations: catching up with friends, deep conversations with my husband, brainstorms with fellow idea people.
But they have also been places of loneliness for me. When I first moved to San Francisco, I remember seeing a group of girls sitting in a cafe laughing and I felt this huge hole. A jealousy that wished I knew people to hang out with. For we live in a time where simply building the places where interactions can happen, doesn't mean that they will.
With lives that spread us out to various places on far more random schedules than ever, we don't all meet up at the same bar when the whistle blows at the end of the work day. And beyond the lack of consistency, even if I frequent the exact same cafe or bar regularly and start seeing the same faces, it's like we have this invisible barrier that doesn't give us permission to really talk to each other. Oh sure, I can say something about the free wi-fi, help them get their computer plugged in or make a witty comment about the weather but making small talk isn't the same as making friends.
We know how to come into these places and enjoy them with our friends, but on our own it's an entirely different beast. In our alone-ness, we want to look busy or distract ourselves so we face toward our iphones, laptops, magazines and books, instead of each other. We choose to be unapproachable.
But with the statistics climbing for how many times we're moving and changing our social networks now, chances are pretty high that more than needing a place to hang out with friends is needing a place that helps foster them.
Creating It: The Symbol of the Space
Just building a cafe and setting up tables doesn't make community happen. It's definitely a tool that helps provide the forum for it, but by-and-large, it doesn't create it.
Even Schultz reports on a case study where the most common thread of positive comments came from customers saying that they loved the "social feeling" of Starbucks. But he revealed the juxtaposition of that hunger with the research showing that less than 10% of their customers actually ever talked to anyone besides the cashier. We want it. We dream of it. We hunger for it. But we don't experience it.
It reminds me of what a leasing agent once told me when he said that apartment builders have to include fireplaces and swimming pools because "everyone wants them" but he guessed that about only 1% of the residents ever used either. Whether it's a fireplace that invokes the hope of warmth and romance, a swimming pool where we picture long & healthy swims or a cafe where we anticipate hanging out with good friends-- we've become too familiar with holding the ideal of what those things symbolize, rather than being willing to actually go after the real objects of our desire: romance, health and community.
Filling It: The Real Hunger
I don't really have any answers. I'm just musing. I wish lighting a fire made someone feel loved. I wish I could hang out in cafes and make friends. Unfortunately, having one doesn't automatically produce the other.
While it's much more popular where I live to support the local and independent cafes over the corporate chains, I will still give Starbucks props for modeling the creation of community spaces in this way. Cheers to all the owners of venues that remind us how much we want to know our neighbors. They keep the hunger alive.
And I hope, that in some small way, GirlFriendCircles can contribute to filling the real hunger. We get to be a part of filling that space with people actually meeting each other.
Thank you to all you GFC members for helping model what the world craves-- real community. Kudos to you for walking in the doors of these gathering places, not knowing a soul, believing that you can walk out with friends by participating in a ConnectingCircle. May the hope you hold turn to reality. Our world needs it to be so!
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p.s. We are always looking for more awesome cafes and wine bars where our ConnectingCircles, groups of new friends, can meet. Add your favorites to our list: Suggest a Cafe.
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Recent Posts
 | | Shasta Nelson founded GirlFriendCircles.com as a way to help introduce amazing women to potential girlfriends. Passionate about women, our relationships and our value to community, she’s inviting women to find those friends online, but make sure to take them offline to a cup of coffee too! |
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