Talk Better Than Cheap (Free) At Conversation Booth

By Kelly Garrison
Features Editor

Every other Saturday, 25-year-old Andrew Simmons sets up a table and chairs under a tent outside of Washington Mutual Bank on Second Street and waits.

“I have my two pugs, and they’re lovely, but they’re not that attentive,” he says. “...I set up a canopy with six to seven rickety Ikea chairs, a couple small tables; I put the sign out and I just sit there.”

A “free conversation” sign on the table sometimes attracts small crowds that gather for discussions on just about any topic.

But often, he says, people think he’s a scam artist.

“I’ve had people grill me about being part of a community group or an anarchist,” he says. “Ninety percent of people glance at me and keep walking, but there are maybe 10 people who literally cancel their plans to come out and talk.”

Simmons moved from the small town of Marsing, Idaho, which he says boasted a close-knit population of about 200 people when he lived there.

After his father’s death seven years ago, he says he moved to Costa Mesa and discovered a stark difference in social norms.

“The culture here is a lot different. People are nice, but everyone is doing the text messaging thing and writing e-mails, and all that to me seems like an inferior form of communication,” he says.

“Where I’m from, when you ask people, ‘How are you doing,’ they really tell you. I always ask people how they’re really doing.”

He says he remembers baking a casserole for a new neighbor who “looked at me like I was going to poison him” after first moving into his apartment.

After that, he says he decided to go one step further in meeting new people, so he set up a conversation booth about four months ago in Belmont Shore, deciding that the area had the small-town feel he was looking for.

Table talk ranges from social and political issues to simply what’s going on in people’s lives, and conversationalists have varied in ages from youth to seniors. Most of the comments center on relationships, he says.

“It goes all over the gamut,” he says. “But it’s mostly infidelity, breakups and relationships.”

A few simple rules, he says, keep the conversation from escalating to argument or offensive language.

“No drinking (alcohol), no sexual advances and don’t be a jerk to people walking by,” he says, adding that “contributors” also can agree to boot people from the conversation.

“It has gotten heated, and if I think it’s too heavy, I’ll change the topic.”

Simmons, who works in digital marketing and calls himself a natural extrovert, says he’s never done anything like this before.

His idea stemmed from the ideals of his father, who he said impacted people he knew through his career as a social worker.

“Whenever I have a crazy idea, I almost always execute it,” he says. “I need to fail in real life, not in my head.”

Aside from meeting with innumerable strangers, Simmons says he’s also made countless new friends.

But one thing the booth is missing, he says, is hot chocolate.

“I wanted to see if I could get some hot chocolate donated, because it gets so cold at night,” he says.

Simmons will host his free conversation booth starting at 3 p.m. this Saturday, Feb. 16.

He says he will continue setting it up every other Saturday.

For more information on Simmons’s conversation booth (or just to talk), e-mail him at freeconversationbooth@gmail.com.

“It’s incredible to hear people’s stories,” Simmons says. “As long as people are benefiting from this, I’ll keep doing it.”

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