Dear Powers-that-be

So I read "Sundowners" by Monica Ali in the latest New Yorker, and I get the thing about how useful it is to a writer to expose himself to human misery - how it's even better to plunge in and make things worse. But then to sit me two days running at tables next to people having excruciating soul-baring conversations between former friends about relationships torn asunder by unmentioned tragic circumstances (dinner yesterday) or straightforward girlfriend-stealing (lunch today)?

Please send this sort of hint to prose writers. I have no desire to be the neighbor.