The Lost Art of Agenda-free Conversations

I spent last weekend in Fuengirola, a seaside town on Andalusia’s Mediterranean coast. Successive waves of cultures and subcultures have shaped this Spanish region, each leaving its imprint in indelible ways. Yet what struck me even more than the pristine blue waters and fusion architecture was a unique conversational practice. Across Fuengirola’s restaurants, I kept noticing the same thing: tables where the meal had clearly ended but no one was leaving.

- Utkarsh Amitabh CEO, Network Capital; Chevening Fellow, University of Oxford

Plates pushed aside, napkins crumpled, empty wine glasses catching the afternoon light. Yet the diners sat back in their chairs, wholly absorbed in conversation, leaning forward to make a point, throwing their heads back in laughter, gesturing with the easy rhythm of people who have nowhere else to be. The Spaniards call this sobremesa. The word itself joins sobre (‘over’) and mesa (‘table’) to capture the lingering hours when conversation outlasts the meal.