Why is Everyone an Asshole at Starbucks?

Today I pose a very important question: why is everyone in Starbucks an asshole?

I walked into Starbucks after getting off at Harvard. The square was quaint and filled with sharply dressed students and childless newlyweds. The brick paved streets were picturesque in the cloudy weather. I was lifted with every step. Lately, my days consist of hunching over a computer and thinking of ways to make enough money to fill up my tank. But here, in the most wonderful place I could think of, Cambridge, the world was bright. Even in the overcast sky.

Here you could meet a stranger and fall in love outside of a guitar store, or find that perfect dress for ten bucks at the second hand shop. Here, my androgynous style of over sized men’s shirts, black pants and boots was the standard. Here I looked like someone who had their life together enough to pay rent.

In the coffee shop I ordered a tall latte, just enough energy to get through an internship search. A man in a wheel chair was behind me as I gazed on the book propped up next to the cash register: A Man’s Sacrifice: Supporting United State’s Veterans. I walked towards to the designated waiting area decorated with wooden table tops and sugar packets. During the next ten minutes different names and concoctions were called out, and one by one the room filtered in new customers. The man in the large wheel chair struggled to find a comfortable place. My heart went out to him, as the room was tight with table corners and the group of J-Crew models standing behind him made getting around difficult. However, he lost my compassion when he tried to ask the barista to refill the half and half when they were making four drinks at a time. Listen sir, I understand that getting stared at by everyone in the room can infuriate a person, but just hold on one second while he froths milk for seven.

The barista called out a latte without a name. A young girl, maybe in her late twenties/early thirties, stepped forward with her hand on her hip. She was mad at “that girl” at the counter because she never asked for her name- and now her latte went to someone else.

I can’t wrap my head around the tones these people felt comfortable using when everything wasn’t handed to them directly. Seriously: Why is everyone an asshole at Starbucks?

Expiring at 22: The shameful spiral of being single and ambitious.

While loading CD’s onto my computer for free at the public library (always on a budget), I picked up a book and watched iTunes like a kettle on a stove. However, I soon found my mind drifting from the newly pressed pages to the open space around me. The public library isn’t a particularly exciting place. It hosts an older crowd with high-waisted pants and large sweaters. And while the ascetic may resemble a Brooklyn coffee shop, I felt severely out of place. As each person glanced in my direction I wondered how I came off. Do I seem friendly? Open? Is my resting face positive and bright? Or do my lips curve down? A relatively young man walked by and followed suit with his gaze, and I kept my eyes on my book, the whole time wondering if he thought I was cute.

I’ve found this phenomenon to be true no matter where I am. If I’m in Boston getting lost on the streets, drinking a cup of coffee with far too much sugar at Starbucks, or while I’m reading at the library, I am consumed with my attractiveness to the opposite sex. When will the next man flirt with me? How many times is too many times to glance up towards someone across the bar? I’m obsessed with the notion of being somebody’s something. I want to be a girlfriend. I want to be branded as ‘romantically acceptable’ by walking down the street and holding someone’s hand.

Of course, as a feminist and aspiring nonprofit executive director, I still worry about my career and professional network. However, the feeling of loneliness doesn’t stray with professional or economic success. It is only temporarily masked- for me anyway.

I’m not alone with this feeling. I’ve talked to friends, strangers and coworkers about the desire for a relationship. What has led this group of young twenty-somethings to believe that if you’re single at 22 of 23 or 24 or 25, that you’ll be single forever? I always thought I’d meet the one in college, but alas, I left college with nothing but a few disappointing hook ups and an embarrassing list of men who broke my heart.

I know that it’s irrational. I know I should be out celebrating my independence, but after completely falling on my face with every new relationship- I just need a win. It’s one of those thoughts that appears for a moment, and just as quickly it is swatted away for being ridiculous. But I still feel compelled to openly discuss it- as it is as true as it is silly. So cheers to the single and alone 22, 23, 24, and 25 year-olds. Here is to a lifetime of loneliness and discontent!

So many girls

I’ve been so many different girls throughout my life. I’ve been the girl the guy doesn’t care about, who takes her on a “date” and it ends in a make out in his car- meaningless and nothing. I’ve been the unattainable girl, the rebound, the girl with a puppy-dog crush, the crazy girl, the desperate girl, the dork, and the heartbreaker. I’ve been a bitch, and a sweetheart, and considered goth or hippie or hipster. I’ve been the weird girl, the fancy girl, the fashiony city girl, the naïve girl. All depending on whose eyes are looking at me; Whose eyes I’m being seen through. I’ve been the girl who’s fallen for artists, musicians and mechanics, the girl who only wanted to date a guy who owns a car, the girl who doesn’t care what a guy looks like, the girl who settles, the girl who’s not picky enough, the girl who’s too picky, the girl who only likes funny guys, the girl who only likes older guys. I’ve been the girl who has been called a prude and a slut. I’ve been the flirt, the tease, the confusing girl who leads guys on. I’ve been the mean girl, the cold girl, the girl with family issues, the elusive butterfly. All the while, the only variable being the man who was looking at me and the only constant being me.

♥E

the summer fling that never happened

I’ve never had a summer fling. Those kids from Grease make it sound like such fun! If I had a summer fling, I imagine his name would be Jacques and his hair would be as darker than a David Lynch film. We’d meet in a silly adorable way, like perhaps he accidentally took my drink at Starbucks, and I would tease him for thinking my name was anything like his, and he’d have a fiery French temper but an English wit, and he’d say something like, “I deeply apologize for the horror I caused; let me make it up to you.”

And he’d make it up to me by picking me up at my hotel (yes, I’m suddenly on vacation, it’s summer, where else would I be) on his Vespa, and I’d be very nervous at the prospect of riding on a Vespa, and he would say, “Shhh, I steer her well.” And I’d trust him, because that’s what you do when you’re on vacation in a fantasyland. You trust the guy with the Vespa.

I’d cling to him as we’d zip throughout the city, all the way out to the beach, where he’d procure wine and cheese from his Vespa. Oh, and there’s a blanket, somehow. Somehow he fit a blanket, because he’s magical Jacques. We’d sit on the blanket and drink wine and he wouldn’t ask me even once, “So what do you do for a living” because he knows such questions are mundane and boring and make me fret about my future. We’d exchange rapid-fire banter like we were meant to. It would be the exact mental stimulation I’d need. He’d keep me on my pedicured toes and then we’d dive in to the water, together, and I wouldn’t feel self conscious about my “bikini body” because he’s already make it clear that he thinks I am the most beautiful woman on Earth. I’d point out that Cara Delevingne is also on planet Earth, and he’d say, “Shhhh” and then blow confetti out of his palm.

Because whimsy.

After the beach he’d drop me off at my hotel, always the gentleman, so that I could change for dinner. We’d go somewhere where men are required to wear a jacket and tie — that’s how you know this is a fantasy, as such places don’t exist anymore. But we’d find it and we’d go there, and I would eat and eat and drink and drink and dinner would feel like our own little Disneyland; a place where we can have fun and be indulgent and no one can judge us. He would insist on ordering one dessert with two forks, and the most magical thing about this meal is that at no point during the meal do we ever check our phones, not even once.

I suppose we’d make love that night, and I say “make love” because that’s what he would say, and the best part is, it wouldn’t sound cheesy or creepy or weird. He’d have that uncanny ability to utter the phrase, “shall we make love” and have it sound as though it were a brilliant and novel idea.

And we’d repeat this every day, sometimes changing it up and going to wine tastings, sometimes just spending the whole day in bed, sometimes just wandering around whatever made up city we’re in, and I would never have to plan anything and he’d insist on paying for almost everything, because he’s old school. He’s so old school he’d drape his jacket over a puddle and insist I walk upon it, and I wouldn’t at first, but he’d beg, and I’d say, “C’est la vie” and he’d roll his eyes and call me a “typical American” and we’d bicker but there’s so much passion there that we’d probably wind up eloping by the end of my vacation and we’d realize it was a very very bad mistake but neither of us would want to admit it, so we’d stayed married for 10 years while he had numerous affairs and I pretended not to notice.

There’s always next summer…

♥ E

are you making bad decisions?

(Because who doesn’t love a post formatted as a list!?!)

1. You wake up every morning with a terrible hangover.

2. You get SO drunk, you black out, and even though you somehow miraculously woke up alone in your own bed, your downstairs business aches and you can’t remember why.
-If  you’re a dude, substitute the aching female parts, with ‘you wake up with red lipstick on your wa-wa, and have no idea how/why/or when that happened!’ But, being a dude, you’d probably still be pretty excited about it! Even if it meant there’s a strong chance you have aids herpes now.Oh well, I guess. fuck, double standards ARE real!

3. You hear that quiet voice in the pit of your stomach (that ALWAYS knows what it’s talking about, BTW) saying one thing (aka- the RIGHT thing! this is what the phrase ‘go with your gut’ means!), but you squash it and do the opposite and end up feeling super uncomfortable with the choice you made- not to mention; aimless, self conscious, and bummed about the situation you’ve put yourself in.

4. You go out every night and never get anything done and wonder how you’re a year older with no accomplishments or life changing progress to show for it.

5. You monitor everything you say before you say it because you’re afraid of what your ‘friends’ will think of you.

6. You’re always worried that people are mad at you.

7. You don’t like the people you call your friends, but you continue to hang out with them because: they are all you’ve ever known, they look/dress cool, and/or you’re afraid they’ll be WAY mean/turn on you if you stop/take a break from hanging out with them.

8. You have no means of transportation/expect people to get you where you need to be. (A 4 month hiatus without a car doesn’t count!!)

9. You talk a LOT of shit.

10. You have a tattoo on your face.

Do your bad decisions have a hierarchy? Share below!

♥ E