Hanging around on benches

There are some shops and a large round bench near my house in the eastern city of Dortmund. I think that these round benches are something special in the Ruhrgebiet. It allows the people to have eye contact with each other while hanging around there. Nearly every time I come along that bench some people are sitting there. Sometimes they just take a break after they have done their shopping without talking to each other, but most often they have a beer or two together, chatting about things that happened recently. The man on the picture is waiting for his pals to hang around with him. He is sitting there almost every day and I have seen him many times. This form of hanging around is very public and the round benches seem to be made for people who are searching for someone to chat with. I have seen round benches in England as well. However, the seats of these benches were reversed, so that the people were not able to have direct eye contact with each other.