We sit here now across from each other at a cramped table in a cramped coffee shop. Our Macbooks are practically tongue-kissing but you haven’t even looked up at me for the last hour. Meanwhile, my fingers have stilled on my keys. I am looking at you. Your furrowed eyebrows, your intent on your task, your dedication to working and to a lightened screen when the sun shines in from the outside through a window advertising chai lattes and I have one ringing, piercing thought: Let’s run away.

Let’s run away and never come back.

When I was a kid at summer camp in the northern woods of Georgia, we’d have to drive up the winding, narrow roads of a mountain to reach any of the cabins. Once, I saw a house where the house part was on the mountain’s peak and the mailbox, limp and splintered, with a sagging red flag to indicate arrivals, was on the bottom by the road. A car full of city folk found it amusing to see a floating remnant of society like that. It looked like a mailbox for a family of bears. I just found it very considerate to the poor mailman. Anyway, my point is let’s move to the top of a mountain in Georgia.

Or hell, let’s not “move” anywhere. Let’s just disappear like the girl who got pregnant in my middle school class. Let’s go away. Let’s evaporate into thin air. Let’s go to Hogwarts or the deck of the Enterprise. Let’s hop into the Millennium Falcon and land in Cloud City and punch Billy Dee Williams in the face. Let’s do anything to get away from these less interesting technological tethers: our work, our friends, our families, our obligations, our stress.

Let’s go somewhere. Where do you want to go? Let’s be selfish.

Who decided this was “the real world” anyway, right? Maybe the real world is a Chinese fishing village, or an Arizona desert valley or a boat in the Balkans or at Ernest Hemingway’s old house in Key West. Maybe it’s on Saturn. Maybe it’s on Alpha Centauri. It sure as hell can’t just be this coffee shop. So maybe this obsession with “living in the real world” and staying put — maybe that’s been the real “vacation” right? From the actual life we’re all supposed to be living, which is the one where:

You take that trip.
You kiss that person.
You quit that job.
You pilot that spacecraft through an alien invasion.

Sometimes, it seems crazy to me how beholden we, as a species, are to prisons of our own creation. Humans invented money. Humans invented time. So really, none of that is any more or less real than say, a flying spaghetti monster or the way I tricked you into meeting me here today under the guise of “working.”

Look around. Do you see what I see? Does it terrify you the way it terrifies me? I could spend hours, days, weeks under my covers in bed reflecting on the sheer emptiness and overwhelming quality of the world only to spend most every day sitting behind a computer, “working” so I can make “money” so I can buy “things.” A hat trick of emotional and physical and societal sameness. Even this coffee shop is a Benedict Arnold — serving pumped up juice for mass consumption.

I need to stop smoking weed and/or watching A Clockwork Orange.

But anyway, none of that matters now. You’ll understand my reasoning in time. This is more than that. You’ll be the companion to my Doctor. Simply put, all you need to ponder now is my singular premise: You should run away with me. Let’s run away.

“Hey,” I say to you in my dreams. “I am pursuing you. Just so you know. But not in an average way. No, no. Not for love or marriage, those social constructs created to sell wedding invitations and flower bouquets. Not for friendship even — a boring tie which allows humans to manufacture importance and “drama” within a limited social group. No. We will be bigger than that. I am pursuing you for something much greater, beyond anything this ceramic cup and tessellation of glowing computers can reveal. I am pursuing you for a higher purpose. So you can be the one who understands my fear and my devotion to the beauty of possibility in this “real” world, so you can save me when the time comes. You are being chosen.”

Then I would pause and let you soak in my meaning.

Then I would raise one eyebrow, smile brilliantly and say, “Well, are you in?”

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image – Lost Highway

1. You pregame coffee with coffee or other forms of caffeine.
2. You were once seen shotgunning a Diet Coke outside of a café to prepare for drinking more coffee inside.
3. You make it a rule to have coffee before any important coffee meeting, because you want to already be alert and perky in advance.
4. You leave some of the coffee you drank before bed on your nightstand, just so you have coffee ready at the moment you wake up.
5. You prefer to date other coffee drinkers because their mouth tastes like coffee.
6. You have strongly considered hooking yourself up to an IV filled with coffee and carrying it around with you at all times.
7. Your formula for making your own coffee is two bags of coffee per cup of water.
8. You make your coffee so strong no one else will drink it and other people will actually beg you not to make coffee.
9. You work at a soup kitchen not just because you want to help people but also because it’s an endless hook up for free coffee.
10. You look at your expenses for the month and see that you spend more on coffee than clothing or food.
11. You sneak coffee into bars, movie theaters and sometimes sex.
12. You’ve ever taken a break during sex to “caff up.”
13. You know what “caff up” means and can say it without laughing.
14. You sometimes color coordinate your coffee thermos with what you are wearing that day.
15. You openly judge others on their coffee orders and are vehemently anti-Frappucino.
16. You drink Frappucinos anyway, when life gets desperate and you really need any caffeine.
17. You like your coffee like you like your men. In any form you can get it.
18. You have recurring sexual fantasies or sexual daydreams that involve coffee.
19. You would marry coffee, if coffee were a person.
20. You go to pick up coffee beans at the store to grind and a large number of them don’t make it back to your home, because you ate them.
21. You learned how to brew your own coffee before you learned how to cook.
22. You sing Harry Nilsson’s “Without You” at karaoke and mentally dedicate it to coffee.
23. You have dated numerous baristas because of their proximity to free coffee.
24. You would get turned on when your ex came home from work smelling of the brew.
25. You have gotten a number of your friends addicted to coffee, because people who are around you always end up drinking it more often than they ever would elsewhere.
26. You don’t believe in wasting coffee and have actually stopped others from pouring it out by shouting, “No coffee left behind!”
27. You always tell waiters they can just “leave the pot.”
28. You will probably put on your tombstone: “Keep it coming.”
29. You plan to be buried with a to-go cup in your hand.
30. You spend more time at the café closest to your house than you do at your apartment.
31. You are on a first-name basis with most of the people that work at said café, their immediate family members, their children and their friends.
32. You have your family, your chosen family and your “coffee family.”
33. You don’t take cream in your coffee because it leaves less room for the coffee.
34. You don’t believe in Americano because you would just prefer a cup full of espresso and started ordering red eyes so there will be no superfluous water in your cup.
35. You don’t believe in Santa Claus; you believe in Juan Valdez.
36. You can order a tall blonde with a red eye and know nothing bad is happening.
37. You have named your mugs.
38. You don’t remember what life before coffee was like.
39. You plan on — if you ever win an Oscar — thanking coffee in your acceptance speech.
40. You secretly don’t see the point of tea.
41. You once tried to give up coffee and replaced caffeine with crying spontaneously.
42. You once asked if you could order your coffee “by the barrel.” (They said no.)
43. You know who the CEOs of Starbucks, Caribou Coffee and Intelligentsia are without looking.
44. You are known to be a regular at multiple cafes.
45. You know all of the banks in a ten-mile radius that leave out free coffee for their guests.
46. You have strongly considered asking a barista to just pour the coffee directly in your mouth.
47. You can’t get that addicted to smoking or alcohol, because you only have room for one addiction in your life.
48. Your body is 80% coffee, 20% thinking about how to get more coffee.
49. Your blood pressure is probably through the roof.
50. You might have a problem.

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I am 23. I have pulled all-nighters, worked ridiculous shifts and enjoyed pie. All in all, I’ve spent 23 years living a very normal life. Except, I did so without the company of coffee.

On March 29, 2012, for no profound or noteworthy reason, I tried it. My first cup was from Starbucks. Now, this was not my first time at Starbucks. Usually, when accompanying a friend at one of their 300 locations above 14th Street, I would ask the barista what they had that most resembled a milkshake. I’d ordered that. But never had I ever had a hot cup of coffee.

When I tweeted the occasion, a friend, a coffee connoisseur, tweeted back, “

duuuuude you don’t go to starbucks for your first cup of coffee!! that’s not coffee!!”



I was born near Seattle, Washington. For pretty much my entire life, I have associated Starbucks with. . . coffee. I ordered a regular coffee. I added sugar and milk. It tasted like savory Earth.

Usually, in these moments, I try to put the experience into some sort of context I can remember it by. But my attention was diverted elsewhere. The hour in which I first had coffee was coincidentally the same hour when an editor from Thought Catalog approved of my first article suggestion. How exciting! The editor made some comments for revision. How very exciting! This alone would have gotten me rather hyped up. Except in this moment, I was legitimately hyped up. My thumbs ferociously pounded the changes onto the Notes section of my iPod Touch as if I was training for Thumb Wars: Normandy Edition. 


So the coffee thing got a little overshadowed.

_____

I have never had a reason to buy a Mac computer. Given the limited reasons I use my computer (Twitter-Email-Google Documents-Repeat), I couldn’t justify the difference in price from my Toshiba.

But now, I am a coffee drinker. Now I can. I can join the cool kids at trendy coffeehouses. I can start listening to Elliott Smith and Ingrid Michaelson. Perhaps date a graphic designer. The possibilities excite me. 


_____

The first time you do anything can be very tricky. Whether trying sex, eating sushi, or watching Garden State, the hype almost always exceeds the initial experience. There’s a moment, after you’ve rolled back onto your back that you simply sigh and think, “Well, then. . .” The doors of adulthood, which you had expected to be thrown open aided by throngs of angelic choirs, at best only leads to watching another rerun of That 70’s Show. Hair doesn’t sprout from your chest. Nicolas Sparks novels don’t become easier to defend. Nothing really changes. 


There aren’t many profound “firsts” that involve beverages although my first Guinness pretty much validated nearly everything my parents told me about drinking. Trying coffee was no different. There was nothing memorable about that day. I had Thai for lunch. Ran into a fellow DJ at my college radio station in a Trader Joe’s.

When I tried coffee, I was with a friend. While she was debating whether or not to leave New York forever, I simply ordered a coffee. I didn’t enter Starbucks looking for a moment. I had no expectations and had no anticipation. And it worked out great. 


My point is, I would recommend not having sex on prom night. Try it out on a random Thursday. It just makes it easier for everyone.

_____

When I was a freshman in college I had a crush on a nice girl from California named Lisa. Moving from New York City to Nowhere, North Carolina was a massive shakeup for me and I initially hated it. But, at Ballroom Dancing Club, I met Lisa.

Despite her relatively heavy step at salsa, we became friends! Now, I’d never had a real girlfriend at that time, usually because I was constantly nominating myself for the position of Mayor of The Friendzone. But that was high school. I was a new Robert. I made it very clear that I was not just a friend. At least, I thought I did. And I actually liked Lisa! She loved Dido and Third Eye Blind. She was very sensible but had good, positive energy. And, let’s be real, she was from California.

Those early weeks of college, I couldn’t sleep. I’d twist and turn on my lofted-bed dreaming of home until I remembered Lisa. And I’d breathe and be asleep. 


Lisa was a coffee addict. She mentioned coffee in all of our conversations. She just could not live without coffee. So, one late fall morning, I woke up very early, intent on making my own Seth-Cohen-stands-on-a-table moment. I walked across campus and bought a small cup of coffee. I knocked on her door. She had been sleeping. She took the coffee. 


This story still annoys me so I’m going to cut to the point. Before our first break, I told myself to step up my game and tell her how I felt. I don’t remember what she said, except that it started with, “Aw.” I’d seen enough Everwood to know that was a bad sign. I left her dorm heading for two years of taking out my frustrations on nice girls afterward.

It is possible I associated coffee with Lisa, which is why I never tried it. Which is stupid.

_____

I lived with a coffee addict. Every morning, my college roommate, who looked very much like Matthew McConaughey, would limp from his room looking more like Willem Dafoe. I thought he was exaggerating. But he wasn’t. Only once we’d committed to being late to our Religion in the Media class and he’d drank his regular coffee from the campus coffee shop did his Florida sunshine come back. 


I thought about staging an intervention except I gathered that this was fairly normal for most college students. And so I, like a good Christian boy, abstained. It was simple. I would rather not reenact Jekyll and Hyde with myself every morning.

_____

Much of America might not know of the Mid-Atlantic’s greatest obsession: Wawa. I do not share this obsession nor do I understand it. As Shakespeare might argue, “A 7-Eleven by another name will still be open for 24 hours.” But if the beautiful people of Delaware need something to believe in, let Wawa be it. My mother, hardly an avid coffee drinker, will stop and grab her coffee from Wawa without fail whenever we are driving through Pennsylvania.

_____

I have had coffee about 8 times since that day. I’ve decided that I like it! I have been back to Starbucks. The intense desire to run a half-marathon I got when I first started having coffee has more or else subsided. I get the lingo now. “How many sugars?” really means “How many spoonfuls of sugar do you want?” That phrasing is weird. Not that I’m a grammar czar or anything. (If you’ve read this far into this piece, that should be obvious.) 


When evaluating coffee’s place is my life, it finds itself nestled in between Delirium Tremens and whole milk. But if I had a choice, I’d probably stick with my go-to drink: Arizona Iced Tea. Either Green Tea with Apple or Mango Madness. I like the sweet stuff.

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Off and on for a few years, I was a barista. I did it in a few different coffee shops, in two different cities, and they ranged in size and scope from “tiny artisan labor of love where making a cup of drip coffee took nearly 4 minutes” to “just push the espresso button, there’s a line of people on cellphones and screaming children waiting.” And invariably, no matter how charming or soul-sucking the establishment, there was the constant influx of customers who were clearly not psyched beyond belief to be out and about at 7:45 AM, and were going to take their pains out on you. (Never mind the fact, of course, that we had been there since 5:00. We chose this life, after all.)

In any case, one of the hazards of the job was clearly having do deal with people who “just can’t even until they get their coffee.” Which, okay, you have an addiction — fine. Take it out on the poor sap in the apron. Whatever. And I didn’t even really expect tips. Sure, they were nice, but I wasn’t going to be one of those baristas who dresses the tip jar up like a venus fly trap with a sign on it that says “Feed me, Seymour!” and essentially glares at every customer’s hand until they turn over their quarters. I wasn’t gonna dance for your money — and besides, I was technically being paid a living wage. It wasn’t your job to supplement my income. But I did get plenty of tips, and plenty of wonderful customers who were a real treat to see every day and became a ritual that made the job feel warm, secure, and almost familial. So not everyone, not even the majority, were deserving of the wrath they got.

But there were those who were horrible — and I mean horrible; I’ve never experienced more directly condescending, rude, and outright cruel customers than at coffee shops. The mothers who won’t even momentarily get off their cell phones to bark an order of 6 Frappucinos for their screaming toddlers, the intern who will drop an office floor’s worth of drink orders on you when it’s 6:45 and you are the only person working with a full line of customers and then impatiently snap at you about how he “really needs to go,” the twenty-something who will order a scone and then sit in the back of the shop the entire afternoon, filing his taxes, knitting a scarf, and roasting a turkey. At the risk of never being hired as a barista again, I believe I am finally ready to lay out the price that each of these transgressions came at amongst my coworkers.

Without exception, the coffee shops I worked at had their own special brands of ass hats that came in and out, and their own ways of handling it. First and foremost, the quality of your drink is inversely proportional to how much you berate us while ordering. That’s a given. The espresso will be burned, the milk will be scalded, and the syrup will be negligible. You can expect that. But some of the punishments for bad behavior were much more insidious, and though they never really crossed the line into the disgusting, they certainly wouldn’t have been appreciated. Aside from being charged too much for drinks whenever possible, there was a solution to every problem. The rude, impatient, condescending mothers who ordered the extra-hot lattes while still in their yoga clothes with their screaming, rude children? Yeah, they were getting made out of half-and-half. Their children’s Frappucinos? Extra shot of espresso. The businessman who talks down to you while simultaneously hitting on you? Decaf, decaf, decaf. Day-old baked goods, extra fat, extra sugar, no sugar at all, too hot, ice cold, whatever could be done to f-ck up your experience and ensure you wouldn’t want to come back (though it rarely worked), it was done. And yes, I occasionally saw a particularly bogus coworker go a little too far and actually do something really mean or gross, but that was exceedingly rare. Usually the retribution was diabolical, but it wasn’t stomach-turning. We kept it classy.

I know that it’s common for people in food service to punish customers for being complete tools, but there is something particularly wrathful about doing it right in front of the customers themselves, all while smiling in their faces and participating in their subtle hints that it’s taking too long. But I never really became a grizzled veteran at a coffee shop, so I didn’t even fully grasp the depths to which people would hold this ire. Sure, there was the errant barista who took coffee extremely seriously and would never dream of messing up an order, even for someone stabbing them in the neck with an ice pick at the very moment of ordering. But for every one of them, there were 10 people who didn’t really like the job, certainly hated getting up early, resented the lack of frequent tips, and were by-and-large overqualified for the job (debatable, I suppose, when most of them held arts degrees). Regardless of education level, though, there was a certain feeling that they (rightfully) didn’t deserve to be spat on and barked at by so many people, day in, day out. And yet, there they were, hip, young, in the big city, and having to make blended coffee drinks for an endless line of screaming children and their cruel parents.

Though I participated sometimes in the evil sabotaging of people’s drinks, and the hyena-like verbal ripping-apart of some of the more egregious regulars, I never fully enjoyed it as much as I think some of my coworkers did. I was still funding school, and still had a lot of hopes about what would happen when I moved onto the “real world.” For me, it wasn’t the “real world,” it was simply a means to an end. But I worked with no less than three people who graduated from Ivy League schools, and were talked to like a knuckle-dragging chimp by some overzealous, balding accountant. People who had to bite their tongue and find their place in this economy, in this hierarchy of worth. And yeah, sometimes they ruined your drink or made it more delicious at the price of 1,000 extra calories. But you, maybe without even realizing it, treated them like the gum that got stuck on the bottom of your shoe while walking down the sidewalk to better things (when there was a decent chance that they were significantly smarter than you). Sure, it’s not right when people in food service mess with your food, but it’s going to happen. Until we start treating each other with full respect — regardless of whether they’re charged with remembering it’s a half-caf, no-foam drink — you can expect to get none of what you asked for.

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Most things served at a chain restaurant

I was born in California which means I was raised on a steady diet of sunshine, sandy beaches, and massive portions of food served in a chain restaurant that was most likely located inside of a mall. Californians didn’t view places like P.F. Changs and The Olive Garden as being kitschy and ironic. They were actually just good places to eat. I carried this belief over with me to the East Coast and as a result, I can’t go a month without dining in some airy, expansive chain restaurant in Midtown that offers Kirstie Alley quantities of food. Screw this trend of bougie comfort food. I’ll take cheddar biscuits over $8 gourmet ice cream sandwiches any day!  That being said, I’m not particularly proud of my fondness for trashy food. Going to a chain restaurant initially fills my heart with joy but when the experience ends, I’m hurting bad. It feels like someone just took a steaming dump inside of my stomach and threw in some knives while they were at it. “I wish I could quit you,” I often whisper to myself as I enter the doors of a place like California Pizza Kitchen. But I can’t. I’m an abused lover just looking for their next hit of ranch dressing.

Chips and guacamole

My love for chips and guacamole knows no bounds but gosh darn it if it hasn’t burned me in the past! The thing with chips and dip is that your body doesn’t send the “I’m full!”  memo to your brain until it’s too late. You go from fiesta avocado euphoria to debilitating stomach pain and shame in one single bite. I seriously wish there was an app that could tell you when to stop eating so as to avoid all of this darkness. But would we stop even then? If we had something that told us, “No, seriously. Stop eating chips and guac or else you’re going to regret it…” we’d probably throw our phone against the wall and watch it smash into a million pieces as we gleefully shoved some more food into our mouths.

My roommate’s

I never quite understood how roommates could just steal each other’s food like it was NBD. Hello, they’re going to notice and you’re going to become the recipient of a passive aggressive handwritten note! Besides, who steals food?! Who does that?! Then I discovered, after moving in with my BFF last year, that I do that. I’m a roommate food stealer. In my defense, it usually happens when I’m drunk or on Ambien but I realize that it’s still not an excuse. My roommate will wake up the next day, excited to eat her leftovers at work that day, only to discover that they’re gone. Perished! I usually feel so guilty afterward that I take her out to a nice dinner but I still don’t think that makes us even. God, I’m a terrible person!

Second helpings

Unless you’re having a tangerine for dinner, your body rarely needs second helpings of anything. You’re full after the first round. You just gotta wait for the food to settle. I know all of this intellectually but I still can’t resist rolling up to the pot of leftover warm pasta and eating it out with a spoon. I sincerely believe that by refusing to put the food on my plate, I’ll eat less of it but it’s not true. I’m that freak standing over the pot alone in my kitchen, shoveling the remnants in my mouth until what was going to be lunch the next day is now just my second dinner.

That extra cup of coffee

No one needs that extra cup of coffee. It will give you cracked out energy for 30 minutes and smelly poop and coffee breath for the next 8 hours.

Drunk food

I know you’re wasted and hallucinating slices of pizza but just eat some bread when you get home and pass out. Because if you eat something at 4 AM, you’ll wake up hungover five hours later and feel like you have a bowling ball in your stomach. Being uncomfortably full at 9am while also tackling a hangover is the antithesis of fun. It feels disgusting. So just close your eyes and resist opening the fridge. You’ll pass out instantly and wake up feeling famished. It’ll be great.

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1. Turning All Water To Blood = Turning All Coffee To Water

7:19 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the coffee cups of Egypt, upon their Talls, upon their Grandes, and upon their Ventis and upon all their holders of coffee, that they may become water; and that there may be only water throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of ceramic, plastic and in vessels of styrofoam.

2. Frogs = Bed Bugs

8:2 And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with bed bugs:

8:3 And the college dormitories shall bring forth bed bugs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy sexual partners, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy couches:

8:4 And the bed bugs shall come up and lay eggs both in thee, and in thy people, and in all thy sexual partners.

3. Lice = Oil

8:16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may spill oil for extreme gas prices throughout all the land of Egypt.

4. Flies = Spam Mail

8:21 Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of spam mail upon thy email, and upon thy friends’ email, and upon thy people’s email, and into thy cellular devices: and the inboxes of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of daily deals, chain letters, and also pornography.

5. Pestilence = The End Of Instant Food Gratification

9:3 Behold, the hand of the LORD is upon thy fast food which is at the McDonalds, in the Taco Bell, in the Wendy’s, at the In and Out, in the Pizza Hut, and at the Burger King: there shall be a very long, grievous wait.

6. Boils = Herpes

9:8 And the LORD said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you brushes of sores of the genitals, and let Moses rub it on bodies in the sight of Pharaoh.

9:9 And it shall become a herpes outbreak in all the land of Egypt, and shall be an infection breaking forth with blisters upon man, and even upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.

7. Hail = Earthquakes And Tsunamis

9:18 Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause it to shake a very grievous quake, and flood from a very grievous wave, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof even until now.

8. Locusts = Zombies

10:4 Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow will I bring the zombies into thy coast:

10:5 And they shall envelop the face of the earth, that one cannot run away: and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the quake and wave, and also they shall eat your brains.

9. Darkness = Internet Crash

10:21 And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward Google, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.

10:22 And Moses stretched forth his hand toward the divine Internet; and there was a definite darkness in all the computers and smartphones in all the land of Egypt for three days.

10. Death Of First Born = Death Of First Born Via Hunger Games

11:4 And Moses said, Thus saith the LORD, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt:

11:5 And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall be sent into the arena of The Hunger Games to fight to the death, from the first born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the virgin Tim Tebow; and most definitely all the firstborn of politicians.

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When the Horrible Internet Commenter wakes up, he eats toast. He does this because on the outside he resembles a normal human being with regular hopes, dreams and wants — like toast. He drinks coffee and scoops a handful of star-shaped cat kibbles into a gummy red bowl for his cat. He brushes his teeth.

He gets on the train, coffee thermos in hand, headphones jammed in his ears. On the train, he notes how much of a hipster loser the boy to his left with the plaid shirt looks. He mentally notes how the woman sitting down would be a little hotter if she was a little thinner and how the old woman on the right should fold up her walker so it doesn’t take up as much space in the aisle. He notes these things but says nothing. Here is not his place.

He’s not particularly unhappy about going to work; he doesn’t love it but accepts unsatisfying careers are a part of life. He works on a computer where he does things like sell stuff for his company.

He talks casually to his coworkers. They’ve long decided going deeper than small talk is a bad idea because of the quiet scowl that crawls across his face when he disagrees. They talk about the weather, the sports games, the fact that people should adopt dogs rather than buy them. He likes it this way. It’s easier to avoid subjects that require him to express an opinion which is an exercise in restraint and is frankly uncomfortable.

On the way home, the Horrible Internet Commenter sees a billboard he does not like. It promotes something he disagrees with, something he is completely opposed to. He turns around, wanting to tell someone how stupid he believes it is. But there is no one. He’s alone. The hatred for the billboard smolders inside him, how can anyone agree with what it’s supporting or advertising or using his tax dollars on? He wants to release a violent yell and tear it down. But he is not in his place. Later.

When he returns home, the Horrible Internet Commenter waters his bamboo plant. Then he kicks off his shoes and grabs a bag of Taco Doritos, shuffling over to his computer. As he presses his index finger to his laptop’s “on” button, a power surges through his arm.

When he sits down, his white cat hops onto his lap and he pets it, stroking its silky head as he decides where to begin. He hops onto a page he regularly visits but something catches his eye. Something he does not like.

His gut tells him he hates it before he can logically understand why. But he does not agree with the writer’s stance; he’s sure of that much. Then he notices it was written by someone he does not find sexually attractive. Perfect.

His keyboard begins to clack, his apartment dark minus the blue glow from his laptop and the nightlight he leaves on for the cat. He tells the blogger that he thinks she is ugly, which is clever, and that what she wrote was stupid. He continues to make his rounds, spinning deeper and deeper into comment boards and using his thesaurus for the most biting insults he can muster.

When he comes upon an article he actually likes he finds an idiot commenter who does not feel the same. He tells him the planet would be better off without him, which seems fair since he expressed nearly the opposite opinion of The Horrible Internet Commenter.

It would be a crime, really, to not share his enlightened opinion with the world, so he keeps typing and typing and scrolling and clicking and panting and brushing Dorito crumbs off on his sweatpants. Every page just begs for his opinion, pleading for his response.

Sometimes, he wants to stop but he just keeps finding things he doesn’t like: stances on politics, essays on traumatic life experiences, opinions on this spring’s shoe trends.

He is angry, furious even, at the evidence he keeps finding that there are people in the world who do not think the same way as him. Screaming at them, his fingers flying away, gives him the power to make that not true.

After he brushes his teeth and applies his tooth-whitening strips he bought on sale, he brings his computer to his comfortable bed and puts it on his belly like an otter with a special treat.

He clicks on his heated blanket, something he could never manage to give back to his parents after they lent it to him years ago, and continues to tell strangers he hates them. He does this for hours; he can’t stop. He must keep commenting on the things he doesn’t love because it’s the only time all day he gets to scream. Doing so in public would draw the ire of the police.

But behind the screen and under his blanket, behind his fake names attached to fake emails and blank photo boxes, behind the opportunity to submit his rage anonymously, he is safe and warm.

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Go for coffee with a guy you used to sort of know. Get all the awkward small talk out of the way. Feel unsure if you are interested. Take the cigarette he offers you. It’s a first date. Don’t be rude.

Walk with him to the art show. Sip on wine and discuss the art. Discuss whether or not art should be discussed. Agree that neither of you like people who discuss art. Laugh tipsily, bail on the art show and go smoke a cigarette.

Wander to the bar. Before you start a game of pool, have a drink and smoke a cigarette. Play doubles with another couple and banter wittily about your first date with him. Win the game. Show off your dance moves. Drink too much and walk back to his place.

Listen to him promise he won’t try anything. Feel disappointment. Realize you like him, you love him, you want him. Snuggle into his bed. Try things. Feel comfortable. Marvel at how, over the course of one evening, your feelings have changed so drastically. In a vain attempt to please him, make him like you, make him think you are cool and interesting and sophisticated, smoke another cigarette.

Start seeing him regularly. Learn all the good things about him and show him all the good things about you. Start buying your own cigarettes. Buy him cigarettes to make up for the times you smoked his. While walking his dog, talk politics, talk religion, agree and disagree, be honest, begin to feel a real connection, smoke cigarettes.

When he is out of town, talk to him, on the phone, everyday, while you smoke your cigarettes.

When it comes time to express your feelings toward each other, be nervous. Feel vulnerable. Smoke cigarettes. Have the talk. Acknowledge that you are both having fun. Be afraid to commit. Things are good; you are happy, don’t ruin it. Relieve the tension of defining the relationship by smoking a cigarette.

Go away for a while, don’t talk to him, sleep around. Repress the urge to smoke a cigarette.

Miss him. Come home. Establish contact. Continue spending time together. Continue smoking cigarettes.

Become dependent on him; see him every night. Smoke cigarettes naked in his bed. Let him tell you things. Ask him all the questions you were afraid to ask in the beginning. Let him tell you about his past and tell him all about yours. Let him see your bruises. Prove to him that you have depth and emotion, that you have been hurt. Try to heal each other. Smoke a lot of cigarettes.

Be too loose with your emotions. Become reckless. Cry. Be more intimate than you have with anyone in years. Think that because he shared with you, you can share with him. Think that you both love smoking cigarettes. Think that you are on the same page. Listen when he tells you he could love you. Feel like you could love hum. Feel like you could tell him anything. Appreciate that he doesn’t judge you, even for smoking cigarettes.

Decide that it’s time to commit to him. Decide that this is real. Imagine your future together. Fabricate a life in which the two of you live romantically in a studio apartment that allows smoking and dogs. Be oblivious to his feelings on the subject. Yes, he’s going to be yours. You like him. You like smoking cigarettes. Nothing can hurt you.

On your way to his house, stop to buy a pack of cigarettes. When you arrive, feel confused when he tells you he is no longer smoking. You both love cigarettes.

Lay in bed with him. Confess that you love him. Listen as he tells you he isn’t sure. Begin to panic. Cry. Try to leave. Feel betrayed. Let him convince you to stay. Let him soothe you. Cling to connection you felt with him only minutes earlier. Cling to the idea of the two of you, in love and happy.

Continue seeing him. Continue smoking cigarettes, despite the fact that he has quit. Hear from him less. Sleep with him, only when he is drunk, only when you are drunk, only after you’ve been smoking several cigarettes.

While you wait for him to call, smoke more cigarettes. Ask your friends why he hasn’t called you. Ask yourself what you did wrong. Regret being so open with him. Regret smoking cigarettes. Smoke cigarettes.

Resent him. Smoke cigarettes.

After weeks of feeling sorry for yourself, come to terms with the end of your relationship. Come to terms with your addiction to cigarettes.

Two months later, see him at the drug store, buying cigarettes.

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Let me start by saying that I like coffee. Not love, because I don’t equate my feelings for it with things that are truly important, like my family, friends, or Sour Cream and Onion Pringles. I know where my priorities are. But by all means, if I’m a little slow in the mornings, nothing like a nice little cup of coffee to get you going and let you deliciously suppress your body’s desire to sleep. I understand the appeal, and don’t deny anyone their right to really enjoy the stuff. But it’s not meth, and people need to stop treating it with the kind of fervor usually reserved for things that people named Crystal cook in their trailers.

If you are the kind of person who goes on a thirty-five minute tangent about how “OH MY GOD I NEED MY COFFEE I AM SUCH A WRECK WITHOUT IT UGH I WOULD DIE IF IT WEREN’T FOR MY COFFEE AMIRITE?!?” you need to not only get a grip on the meaning of the word “need,” but you also need to re-asses the hilarity of those webcomics you love to post everywhere that echo your inability to function without a morning cup of bean residue. Talking about how you ~*~omg totes need ur caffeine to function~*~ is the conversational equivalent of reading a Cathy comic. No one needs coffee. You could do with tea, or without anything, if the occasion called for it. Giving a crabby look and snapping that you “haven’t had your coffee” is being a child who refuses to sit still until he is given his pacifier. We all have problems, let’s be adults.

And for the people who may or may not “need” it in that egregious first world problems-sense, but who treat coffee as though it’s some kind of amalgam of wine, fois gras, and canary diamonds — you, too, should consider getting a grip. Now, I don’t care if you want to be the kind of guy who goes on a ten-minute tangent about the roundness of the mouthfeel of the Papua New Guinea Reserve you just got in (I have worked at a brutally hipster coffee shop, I know that some of these people can be nice deep down), but don’t treat everyone else like a mouth-breathing neanderthal if they enjoy a little sugar and cream. There’s no reason to look at someone as though they’re personally stabbing you if you mention how you like Frappucinos, or think that Dunkin’ Donuts makes a really good roast (WHICH IS TRUE, DAMNIT). The thing is, going to “cuppings” — a wine tasting for coffee, essentially — or “barista jams” — yes, people actually say this word with no trace of irony — is great! Everyone’s allowed their niche interests. But the rest of us aren’t philistines because we like the errant Caramel Macchiato, and no amount of “but you really need to drink this one at precisely 110 degrees, anything more and you lose that chocolate finish” is going to convince us not to just want to dump three Splenda in.

I say this with love, because I feel like our relationship with coffee has gotten so strange as a culture in the past twenty years, and we should be focusing such absurd attention on something that is really worth getting so obnoxious over — like whether the Euro will be around in 2 years, and if Germany is going to become the de facto ruler of any federation that might arise.*

*Just kidding, I meant whiskey.

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I lie sometimes. I say things that aren’t true and send them off into the universe, giving karma the middle finger. But my lies are small and largely inconsequential. I lie mostly about stupid stuff like when someone asks me if I’ve seen a certain movie and I say yes even though I haven’t. This is a courtesy lie though. Instead of making the person explain the plot and the significance, I’m allowing them to just make their point and move on to the next topic. See? Easy breezy.

Some people I know though—people who I have actually been good friends with for certain periods of time—are pathological liars. They’ll lie about anything, no matter how big or small, out of a compulsion or an insecurity or, as often is the case, they’re just insane. I hate these people. They weird me out. Their stories often don’t add up and they get  caught in a lie, which you just usually have to ignore because it would be too uncomfortable to call them out on it. So you just have to pretend what they’re saying is true while nodding politely even though you’re secretly freaking out. Yeah. Having pathological liars for friends is not fun.

I once lived with a girl who would lie about everything. She claimed she was a nationally-ranked tennis player, even though she was a waitress at a trendy restaurant, and she once told me that a coffee she purchased at a pricey cafe cost her fifteen dollars. Fifteen dollars for a cup of coffee. When someone tells you something that is so blatantly a lie, what do you say exactly? “That’s impossible. A coffee can’t cost that much. Show me your receipt!” You can let then know that what they’re telling you is hard to believe but what you can’t get in their face about it. Because oftentimes, compulsive liars believe their own stories. They’re, in fact, delusional. And it’s not worth trying to fight it. All you can do is tiptoe out the backdoor while imagining the score from Psycho to be playing.

I had another friend who lied mostly out of insecurity. He told people he lived in Bel Air when he actually lived in Sherman Oaks (Oh, the private shame of living in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the Valley!) and when he took a leave of absence from the school we both attended in New York, he told everyone he was transferring to UCLA. These lies I understand more. I guess it’s more chic to say you live in Bel Air and it’s understandable that someone would feel embarrassment for taking a year off of school. But, still. Why? Why do you need to do it? Why do you need to lie to your closest friends—people who know the real story. I understand lying to an intimidating acquaintance but not your close friends. That’s different. That’s like a weird betrayal.

To be fair, I think compulsive lying is a symptom of a much larger problem, one that’s possibly a type of mental disorder. And to those who don’t feel the need to lie constantly, it comes off as bizarre behavior. It’s crazy how common it is though. I bet everyone who’s reading this knows someone like the two people I just described. Isn’t that sort of nuts? Interestingly, people who lie about bigger things than coffee and their address don’t offend me so much. I understand why someone would lie about cheating. I understand why someone would lie about doing drugs. That makes sense to me. There’s something substantial to cover up. But there seems to be no valid reason to lie about something like the price of a coffee drink other than to do it for the sake of lying, which is terrifying.

Thankfully, I’ve since cut out those liars from my life and if one of my friends starts feeding me BS, I’m quick to call them out on it. Because we all lie a little bit but that doesn’t mean we should always get away with it.

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