Miss Cool

I’ve mentioned before that Starbucks is a place to meet people – to hook up, to have a first date, to scope out potential mates. And this week I saw what I think could be a first date. After all, it makes sense to go to Starbucks for something like that. If you meet casually for coffee, there’s no pressure to dress up, no pressure over who pays (because it’s inexpensive), no reason to stay too long, and no pressure for a goodnight kiss or invitation to “come back to my place” (unless it’s a really successful date).

I saw the woman first – she walked in, replied to the Starbucks’ staff’s greeting, then sat in a chair by the wall without ordering. Obviously she was there for a purpose – she wore a tight shiny purple top, a tight black pencil skirt, and super-high black pumps with ankle straps. Unusual attire for 8:30am. She caught my eye because she strutted in like she was hot stuff. I didn’t agree with her own assessment of herself – her two-tone hair prevented her from looking classy. How can you think that black hair with a layer of blonde on top looks good? I’m not sure what look she was going for.

About thirty seconds after she sat down, a man joined her. He wasn’t dressed to impressed; he wore jeans, black sneakers, an untucked shirt and a baseball cap with his sunglasses sitting on the brim. They got their coffee and then sat at a table for two. On the way, he got a nice long look at her butt.

The reason why I thought it was their first date was because of the way she talked. Non-stop, loudly, importantly. And he sat with a half-smile on his face, not at all annoyed. Surely it was nervous talking? In the middle of her rambling, a few words floated over toward me. “Porn.” (Or I guess she could have said “corn” but that is less likely.) “No f—king way!” (Immediately I was impressed at her use of adjectives.) “He would call me all the time and they had to trace his calls!” (She obviously felt the need to show how desirable she is.) I also heard “water fight,” “white trash,” “pregnant,” and “a lot of drama.” The latter described her to a T, but I’m not sure if she was aware of that. All of this was stated while she tossed around her Cruella-colored hair with importance, flashing her smile and gesturing constantly – she even winked one eye at him one time to illustrate an especially cute point.

So who am I to judge? No one. And I shouldn’t be so harsh. She was happy, and the guy seemed happy, so who cares. She was friendly and animated – the only true fault I could find was her loud overuse of the f-word. Everything else could be forgiven. After all, from her vantage point I’m probably that weird curly-haired woman who sits at Starbucks all the time with her dog and always orders the exact same thing and wears sweatpants (It’s because of the dog park!) and needs to get her roots touched up.

In the interest of journalism (it’s all in the interest of my writing, I swear) I stood up and looked out the window after they left, trying to see how their date ended. They walked together across the parking lot to her car, where they spoke for a minute and then hugged goodbye. A hug. Hmmm. Maybe it wasn’t a first date after all. At least I know no one got lucky.