“Let’s get coffee sometime,” a new acquaintance says.
I smile and nod politely in agreement, as is required by the customs of such coffee invitations. But internally, I am in strife, on the edge even of rage. Why coffee? Why has the buying and consuming of an expensive, over-caffeinated, often over-sugared drink become irreversibly wedded to the one-on-one conversation?
Some might say that this question comes from my blackened heart as a coffee-hater. I ask for the pardon of coffee addicts everywhere, but I simply cannot understand the appeal to such a beverage. It is naturally bitter. It makes one thirstier after than before one has begun to drink it. It has an aftertaste that could be labeled “essence of old shoe” and contributes to bad breath and brown teeth. Perhaps if it was clear or a delightful color of the natural rainbow I might be able to acquire a tongue for the taste, but, realistically, it displays the same unappetizing color as used motor oil.
The very idea that some have labeled themselves coffee “addicts” also keeps me from throwing myself wholeheartedly into the current drinking trend. If those who love coffee the most have been given the name “addicts,” one can infer that they no longer drink it because they enjoy it, but because they have been entangled in the brew’s dark clutches. How, then, am I to trust such an addict when they tell me that coffee “tastes good”? I put no more faith in their assertions than I would in the statements of a meth addict who says he only continues drug use because the meth makes him, and anyone else who tries it, “feel good.”
Because of these natural, and in my opinion, reasonable objections to coffee, I feel justified enough in saying that I will not drink such a beverage and will not accept the claims of “addicts” that it is an impossible task to live without it. It is illogical enough to enjoy coffee, but will not bother coffee drinkers if they will not bother me. After all, if I ask them not to impose their addictions on me, I will not impose my scruples on them.
Alas, if only coffee had remained an individual rather than societal problem. The rise of coffee as the number one social drink has officially excised me from social networks and centers of intellectual communication. Now, if I want to get to know someone, it seems that I must capitulate to the system and “ask them to coffee.” If I were to ask simply if they would like to “sit down and talk for a while so we can get to know each other,” I would instantly be rejected, not to mention labeled as a strange human being and relegated to the outskirts of normal society.
Coffee as a social drink is an even more enigmatic phenomenon than coffee as a popular beverage of choice. It requires the shelling out of at least four dollars that buy nothing more nourishing than sugar, fat, and empty calories, not to mention the jitters. Wouldn’t one rather pay for a delicious and satisfying meal with the money spent on just two or three cups of coffee?
Besides, isn’t the point of the “coffee date” to encourage conversation? Conversation is free if one doesn’t feel the need to buy coffee in order to facilitate, instead simply sitting with the other person somewhere (not a coffeehouse) and chatting. And who desires for their breath to stink and their teeth to be yellow while they get to know someone new or to grow a previously established relationship? I know that I certainly want to smell and look my best. I also know that caffeine exacerbates my already-weak concentration skills. How can a good conversation occur when listening skills are dropped to record lows by the anxiety-causing effects of caffeine?
This is my plea, though my voice be drowned out by the roar of all those pounds of coffee being ground by baristas everywhere. Until conversation without a beverage comes back into social popularity, I suppose I will have to capitulate, shell out my four dollars, and chug down my bitter sugar-saturated oil-colored social medicine in order to have any friends.
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