Peter and I talk...

Today on my lunch hour I saw an old man, with a white cane, wearing a safari hat, jean shorts, a flannel shirt, and a sign around his neck, which read: "I enjoy company. How about a 5-minute conversation?" I loved it. I was about to get up to invite him over, when a woman from another table asked him to sit with her.
Meanwhile, I sat at my table, eating a cookie and drinking coffee, writing some notes on the opportunities of two different types of aloneness ("all-one-ness" and "a-lone-ness").

I was in the middle of pondering the question, "What are the specific opportunities of my aloneness?" when a I saw the woman from earlier inquisitively address a couple. She asked her question, put her thumb into her pocket. The couple began to look around in their bags. I inferred she wanted a pen or a pencil. So I asked her, "Do you need a pen?" She said she did. I handed my to her and she walked back to her table. She returned with the pen, and then returned again, and I said, "Do you need the pen again?"

She said she didn't and wanted to know if her friend(the guy with the sign around his neck) could sit with me. I said he could. I was intrigued and wanted to ask him about his sign.
He sat down, told me his name is Peter. I asked him about his sign.

He said, "I am blind, and I spend a lot of time alone in my house. I get cabin-fever, you know. So I decided to make a sign. And it has worked. I have met a lot of nice people since."
I said, "When I saw your sign I was a little envious."
He said, "You should make your own sign."
"I think it is a great idea, and if it weren't for social stigmas, I would make a sign."
"What?"
"Stigmas"
"What stigmas?"
"A young guy showing his desperate need to not be alone. I mean, you have to really own your aloneness."
He said, "Yeah, sometimes I get really depressed, and sometimes I accept it."

I told him I was writing about aloneness before he sat down. He asked me what I wrote, and told him I was writing about aloneness's opportunities and how I split aloneness into two categories. I told him I thought aloneness can allow us to be more adaptable.
He said, "We are social creatures. We need to talk to people."
I agreed. The conversation meandered a little. He then told me how his life is in turmoil because he is in the process of divorcing his wife. He said, it would be okay if she wasn't still living in the house. However, he also expressed some lentiment because he is losing a person who could help him live more easily, but he can't do it because she isn't emotionally stable.

Here is a blind man, who began to lose his eye sight in 1987. He went into early retirement because of his eyesight was failing. He was a flavor chemist. He comes to Weaver Street Market Wednesday, Fridays, and Saturdays from 11:30am-2pm so he can talk to people.

Today, Peter and I talked. We talked about aloneness or perhaps (at times), we talked about loneliness.