You had me at latte

Why is it when you are desperate to go out, dance, and pull nobody calls? I have texted and phoned the usual suspects but either they are ill or networking. I’m not best pleased.

However, perhaps I should have planned going out earlier in the week. So now I’m thinking about going out by myself. This scares but also thrills me. Sometimes it can be really exciting and you find yourself chatting to interesting people, or at other times it can be bloody depressing as you sip your drink and try and look mildly disinterested whilst all the time you are screaming inside ‘please talk to me, please talk to me’. Edinburgh men don’t seem to actually talk to each other on the scene, sniff and look down their nose yes talk no. In fact a friend told me the other day that he is so used to this strange vow of silence that he is worried when somebody does actually talk to him.

I have found the same thing in other cities I have lived in and visited so perhaps it is a gay thing. Or perhaps I don’t give off the right vibes. My oldest childhood friend, Adam, who lives in London has told me I have to get a look. I took him out to my local club in Edinburgh, where perched on a stool, he glanced around the bar smiling wryly at the men around him. In less than five minutes the guys were swarming. This was a while ago and I still haven’t perfected a look. I might have to telephone Adam for some more lessons.

I’m unemployed again – but have had the week off from job hunting. I’ve mainly been watching films but also managed to do some writing in a coffee shop, gone to an Islamic art exhibition, continued to read ‘The Historian’ and started Alberto Manguel’s ‘A Reading Diary’. The coffee shop trip was fun but I had other reasons to get my coffee there.

A few weeks ago I was working around the corner from this particular coffee shop. Normally I’m not into this particular chain of coffee shops but I had noticed that a cute guy worked there. He had a little beard and shaggy bed head hair. In the middle of the day, after cutting and pasting the four hundred and tenth address into Excel I found I needed a little handsomeness in my day.

Anyway, after a particular hard day of ‘Excelling’, I went to get a coffee. I ordered it from my cute barista, and whilst I was waiting I went to look at the mugs on display. (As a child I used to collect mugs but that’s a different and painful story for another time). Unfortunately, feeling tired, so tired that I felt my face was on backwards, I walked into the display. As I laughed out of my nerves, my nervous giggles were joined by that of my cute barista. I turned around and smiled at him and he said ‘You’re the first person who has smiled in here today’. Oh happy day!

I started to go more regularly, but then he disappeared. Finally two weeks later he was there looking browner. He told me he’d been to Croatia, and had a nice time. I was really nervous talking to him especially as his co-worker was stood next to him. My cute barista also seemed to be anxious as he too got tongue tied and started to tell me about Croatia’s currency system. OK, I was a little bored but I fell in love right there and then. You could say he had me at the latte.

Now I know he might only be doing his job, but I don’t care. So that’s why I was in again last Monday. (I haven’t been in for several weeks). Alas, he wasn’t there, in fact all the staff had changed but I’m just hoping that he might come back.