I never eat alone

Art Burshy had been travelling this week. He was visiting Paris for an 'important' business negotiation meeting.
The whole day people had spent time in a room talking about setting up some new business together. And there were different nationalities involved, so a good ingredient for many misunderstandings.

Art always flies under the radar at such meetings; big ego's never make good negotiations. So he laid low at the start of the meeting, observing the regular dynamics happening:
- the Americans jumping enthusiastically head first, seeing all commercial opportunities and justifying those with statistics and branding stories
- the Dutch highlighting all the issues that could be encountered, wanting guarantees for every little issue and also openly sharing way too much of their considerations to get the best commercial outcome.
- the Belgians all silent, calm and thoughtful bringing up points; and when confronted with negative feedback or being overruled - smiling and withdrawing - waiting for the next moment to bring up the same point again.
- the French emphasising the relationships and confident that in the end all can be solved, exploring the intellectual concept rather than focusing on approach and delivery
- the English saying a lot without saying anything really; masters in understatement and joyful beating around the bush
- the Germans bringing their view of the world in many layers of details, listening to others but persisting in their view and structure as being superior.

Art had seen it all, and he knew all cliches, stereotypes and prejudices.
The only thing Art had really learnt was that dealing with other cultures requires less talking and more listening. If you go too much on the stereotypes you risk missing important points and values that actually should be addressed. Also, you always forget how much your behaviour and interpretations are defined by your own culture and context; and therefore you risk wrongly interpreting behaviours of people from other cultures.
So, shutting up and observing was key. As a consequence of being silent and asking questions of other people's views, people do not see you as a threat... which is a great asset once final proposals have to be made for the compromises.

Anyway, it had been a long day, much talking and finally reaching a good result.
Many people then proposed to go out for dinner, but Art felt like being a moment alone after sooo much display of ego and talking. He went for a walk in the centre of Paris, along the canal St Martin and its nice little cafes, Rue du Temple searching for nice street art, and then finding a small restaurant in the Marais area.
He knew the food would be great and also anticipated the question of the waiter: "are you alone or are you waiting for someone", where Art replied "I never eat alone...I am eating with my smart phone".

It sounded more sad than it actually was. And of course Art was just joking, although there had been moments where he had observed himself and others realising that people fill up any loneliness with their smart phones...
Well, anyway, Art Burshy liked his moments alone; some free space for reading, drawing and reflection, or just enjoying an endless vacuum of thought-space in his mind. He took a glass of wine, thought of his wife and his kids, and started reflecting on his recent art concept and about life - because these things are more important than a silly negotiation with old white men in a small sweaty room...and definitely more urgent than sending social media updates to people you hardly ever see but that you call 'friends'.

After Art had finished telling me the story I wondered whether he was actually contradicting himself, because in some cases he shares a lot (also through me) about his life and reflections in social media...
But when I asked him about he said: that's different because the intention is different: a) spreading the virus of wonderment and reflection and b) pure marketing...