In class observation exercise

I was able to sit at Bongo Java over the course of an hour while getting coffee by myself. Since I have been there many times, I understood that the foot traffic was going to be high because of the time of day. I was surprised by the amount of people that were sitting alone. Usually, I thought that mostly everybody was there with a friend but on this occasion, it wasn't the case. I was intrigued by the variety of people and personalities. Nashville is a melting pot of cultures because there are people here from seemingly every state. At the same time, personality preferences such as Country, Rock, Indie, and Classic was witnessed. In a nutshell, people were there from ages 18 to 80. People were more independent than I thought. It was nice to see interaction between people that were not there together. Conversations were started from random comments between people. Someone for instance commented on another person's shoes, which turned into a 20 minute conversation about fashion and music. I was able to sit back and witness multiple friendships being formed. The only thing that was "disturbing" was if someone looked unsure or uneasy. I saw one particular person that just looked unhappy and upset. They stuck out like a sore thumb, but were given really no preference or notice from anyone. Whenever a pretty girl would walk by, it was funny to see three different tables of individual men nonchalantly glancing up and sometimes even smiling. Overall, it was an interesting experience to people watch from an ethnographic perspective. I had to really watch what was going on and listen in on conversations.