Pancakes and a side of friendship
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Jonathan Cummings at IHOP on East Colfax Avenue. Photo: Robert Sanchez/Axios
The customers scattered across the IHOP on East Colfax Avenue don't know why Jonathan Cummings is here eating strawberry pancakes.
- A lot had led him to this booth.
Context: Earlier this year, his engagement ended. Rent and groceries got so expensive that the 32-year-old Army veteran paused his college degree.
- Good work is hard to find, so he started delivering Domino's pizzas in Aurora for minimum wage.
One night not long ago, after finishing his late shift, the Georgia native sat alone with his thoughts.
- His mind raced.
- He'd never felt so desperate.
- He opened Reddit.
Cummings saw a post from someone asking for fun things to do in Denver. Strangers were offering suggestions to a person they'd never met.
- He decided to ask for something, too.
What he said: "Long shot. I know," Cummings thumbed into his phone. "But I'm having a bad week. Is anyone willing to meet me at the Ihop located at Forum Fitzsimons? I'm in a really bad headspace rn."
- Then he drove from his Aurora rental to the restaurant, slid into a booth near some windows and waited.
A message pinged his phone: "Still there? U trynna grab some ihop??"
- Then another: "You got anyone comin' down? I'm like 20m out."
- Then another: "I'm here. In a grey button up shirt."
In the room: By midnight, three strangers — two men, one woman, from Aurora, Denver and Arvada — were in the booth with him.
- Cummings told them about his failed engagement, his moves from Georgia to Texas and then Colorado and how he struggled to get ahead.
- How can someone live among so many people and still feel so alone?
The three didn't say much. They listened.
One hour became two. A server kept the coffee coming. Eventually, one stranger left. Then another.
- Cummings and the last stranger finally walked out around 6am.
He told me this story the other night at the same IHOP, over a plate of strawberry pancakes.
- We talked about relationships and loneliness. About the three strangers who showed up.
- Tears filled his eyes.
"By the end of that night, I didn't feel alone anymore," Cummings said.
The bottom line: Before we left, he told me he was going fishing that weekend with three people who weren't strangers anymore.