Well, I mentioned several weeks ago that I kind of have a crush on a new coffeeshop girl. Almost everyday, I go in, order a latte, which she makes, we do the typical small talk, we both smile quite a bit, do the usual flirty things (at least I think it’s flirty), and then I leave. Our total interaction has maybe totaled three hours so far. My boss thought she got fired last week, but my heart was lifted the next day to learn that it was not true, and people make jokes and I dramatize my love for this girl that serves coffee. If she ever learns this, it will either be very cute and endearing, or extremely creepy.
Now there’s a few reasons I bring this up. First off, I am very good at these kinds of relationships, because I’m friendly enough to talk to someone, even flirt with them, but never have the guts to go any further then that. I would much rather just leave these little fleeting relationships completely undefined than to ever make a move. So I end up waiting way too long, and by the time I do muster up the strength to even vaguely hint at the desire of something more, she’s either married with a couple kids, or the slight interest she had in me has been dead for a decade.
But the problem I have is this. If I try to actually ask out said coffeeshop girl, what we have now will never exist again. We cannot ever have this casual cute flirty relationship ever again. Since I’m a complete pessimist about relationships, I also can never imagine her having any attraction toward me, so I just assume that things will end right there, and we’ll stand the awkwardness for about a week, before I just start going to another coffeshop everyday.
So I guess the point I’m bringing up, and I guess this kind of goes along with my most recent post, is what do these relationships mean? In our lives, we form so many short relationships that never get defined, that never reach a very deep level, but I can’t imagine life without them. What fun would it be to go into a coffeeshop without the same cute girl making the latte everyday that I’m now on a first name basis with? I guess these kinds of relationships are the things that make the human experience unique, and I wouldn’t want to go on without them, but I always wonder if whatever current one should be a deeper relationship or not, and how on earth I’m supposed to find that out.
A few thoughts for you to ponder.
1) Little relationships are, in some ways, just as important as the big ones. When I lived in Detroit, I was a regular at a little restaurant called the Grand Cafe. When I first started going there, the manager and owner was a playwright named Lance. I got to be on a first name basis with the whole staff. Then management changed, and I became first-name-basis with the new management and staff. I meant to keep up with Lance’s writing career (he’d won an award before buying the cafe)–but once he wasn’t in my life, things changed, and I didn’t keep up.
Those little relationships are important, not in and of themselves, but for the purpose they serve. At that cafe, I had a sense of community. I was a regular. I belonged, oddly enough. It isn’t that the individual people didn’t matter, but their presence in my life was fleeting, and it wasn’t destined to work out that I’d keep in touch. (The same is true of the regulars I had as a cafe worker–I loved my study-girls, and we’d chat two or three nights a week. We even exchanged e-mail addresses at the end, but as soon as they weren’t a regular part of my life, we drifted.)
The point I guess I’m making that I didn’t even realize I was going to make is that the small relationships are designed to be transitory. They shift and change, and mean a whole lot in the present, and maybe form part of who we are, but in the long term, they fade away.
2) In my history as a cafe girl, I rarely got asked out (which was fine, because I had a long-term guy, who was later a fiance). On those occasions where I did have a regular with whom I was friendly ask for my number or for (ironically) a coffee date, due to my relationship, I turned them down. That said, on my end, nothing changed–I was flattered to have been asked. The question had been asked by them with no real weight attached–if they were disappointed, they never showed it. They asked with the attitude of, “If I didn’t ask, I’d never know, and I might miss out,” or so it seemed to me from the conversation that evening. After that, it was never mentioned again, and all went on as lightly as it had before.
I have no idea if this is normal, or if this is the modern attitude toward dating (since, I say with all thankfullness, realizing how lucky I am, that I met someone in college and never had to play the dating game in the “real” world). But if there is no real investment in the answer on your part, knowing the possible, very good reasons for a no response that might not be a rejection in other circumstances, then it’s possible to go on as before.
If there is investment, then a new coffee shop may indeed be your only solution. But the answer could just as easily be positive–the only way to know is going out on that limb and asking. I don’t envy you.
3) Out of random curiosity, as a fan as well as a friend, is this the girl from the song on your newest CD? 🙂
Wishing all the best for you…
-Alana
I just really hope that the first name basis by which she knows you isn’t Harvey… she’ll never go out with you if she thinks your name is Harvey…. or Raul….