4 Birth Months Who Can’t Sit With Their Back to a Door

You’ll take the wobbly table. You’ll share the fries. But the chair facing the door? Somehow, that is where your easygoing nature reaches its limit. If you’ve ever negotiated a seat swap before opening the menu, this birth-month reading is for you. These four personalities like to see who’s coming in, though they have very different reasons for claiming the same chair.

January

By the time everyone else has put their bags down, January, you’ve chosen the seat facing the entrance. From here, you can spot the friend who’s arrived at the wrong table, catch the host’s eye about the missing chair, and see whether the rest of your party is finally coming. You have a remarkable willingness to become the person who knows what’s going on. Turn your back to the door and suddenly you have to ask other people for updates, which seems like a very inefficient arrangement. Your friends tease you about needing to supervise the restaurant. Then someone asks whether the birthday guest has arrived yet. You answer without looking up from your menu.

July

There’s a particular moment you hate, July: walking into a busy room and wondering if anyone is going to look up. You remember how lovely it feels when somebody spots you immediately, their face changing before you’ve even reached the table. Given the choice, you want to be that person for someone else. So you sit facing the door, ready to wave a friend over or notice the late arrival hovering with a coat still on. Even in somebody else’s home, you can find yourself welcoming people as though you sent the invitations.

The habit follows you into the middle of the evening. Someone’s partner has just arrived; someone else is trying to say goodbye without interrupting. You catch the little wave. You move a bag off a chair. A room feels warmer when people can find their way into the conversation, and you like having a good view of who needs a place.

September

Was that the door? Did someone just come in? Are they coming over here? September, a sound behind you can create three questions before the person across the table has finished a sentence. You’ll glance over your shoulder, turn back, and discover you’ve missed the part of the story that explains why everyone is laughing. Now there are four questions. Facing the entrance keeps the ordinary business of people arriving pleasantly obvious: a coat comes off, a chair scrapes, somebody joins another table. All accounted for. You can return to the conversation without spending half of it trying to work out what’s happening six feet behind your head. Your friend can finally tell the story once.

November

Before you tell the good part, November, you take a quick look at the entrance. You enjoy a conversation that can become candid, ridiculous, or wonderfully indiscreet, and you prefer to know when it has acquired an audience. A friend leaning across the table deserves your undivided attention; an acquaintance appearing over your shoulder deserves a little advance notice. With the door in view, you get to finish your sentence and decide whether the next one is suitable for the person approaching. The chair opposite can have the prettier view or the nicer cushion. You’ll take the one that lets you see your coworker arrive before you launch into a dramatic impression of your boss.