Happy To Chat?

A couple of weeks ago I found myself with an hour to kill in a satellite town I kind of knew. In the thirty or so years I’ve occasionally visited the town not a lot has changed. The number of actual shops on the high street has gradually gone down, and the number of charity shops has gradually gone up, but that’s about all. Now – post-Covid – someone from the council has decided that there’s a need to get people socialising again. So they’ve taken one of the bits of too-wide pavement and filled the space with a loose circle of benches. Normally I would’ve ignored them, but as I walked through the circle, I noticed that one of the benches had a plaque. The plaque read ‘Happy to Chat’. I was intrigued. I had time to spare. For a change, it wasn’t raining, and there were quite a few people strolling up and down the street. I went over and sat on the bench opposite the Happy To Chat Bench. It was empty, and so were the other two benches. I was the only person sitting down.

A couple of people walked past. I smiled at them. They kind of smiled back. I had half a thought that they’d also speeded up slightly. I was trying to work out how I’d worked this out, when someone else came and sat down on the bench next to mine. We nodded at each other. I took out a book I’d just bought from one of the charity shops.

I’m old these days, but the man sat on the next bench was older. And his dog looked older still.

“what’s his name,” I said, nodding, smling at the dog’s grey muzzle, the bleary, ‘I used to love walkies, but now it all feels like such a faff’ eyes.

The man looked confused. My accent does that sometimes. A lot. Wherever I am, my accent is from somewhere else.

“You from the council?” the man said.

“I’m not, no.”

“You come to look at that,” he nodded toward the Happy To Chat Bench, “you won’t be the first.”

“I didn’t know about it. Before. Is it famous?” I tried to smile, “does anyone ever sit there?”

The man laughed. Loud enough that the dog looked up at him, “not so far as I know. I come here most days. I’ve never seen anyone.” A pause, “you wouldn’t, would you?”

“I guess not,” I nodded back, “unless…”

“I’ve been here when all these other seats have been full. Everyone looking at that one. Daring someone to come and sit on it.”

“What would you’ve done if they had?”

He looked at me, the confused look again, “huh?”

“If someone’d come along and sat on it, while you were all here sat looking at them?”

“Well. I suppose. I never thought about it. Probably squished up on one of the other benches so he could move.”

“Maybe that was the council’s plan?”

“Huh?”

“The best piece of reverse psychology in the history of reverse psychology. No-one would ever sit there because they wanted to chat. Too embarrassing. But they would come and sit on one of these seats and chat about that one.”

The man shook his head, “No. I don’t think the council would do that.”

“There’s probably some research,” I tried.

But already the man was getting to his feet, pulling on the lead, “if there was, that would be a double waste. Waste of time and waste of a good bench.”

I nodded, “nice dog.”

He looked down, yanked at the lead, “time to go, Sid. No conversation to be had here today.”

First triple bluff I’ve experienced in a long time.