Enter the Confessional 1: Peccadillos

I am endlessly susceptible to café staff.

I've tried to give them up, I really have. I've tried stopping in too often in an attempt to inure myself to their charms. I've tried avoiding cafés altogether, thinking that cold turkey might be the only cure. I've even tried dating a couple, and while there's nothing more likely to take the shine off one's perception of any group than an extended close relationship with one of its representatives, I remain undauntedly smitten. (See also: musicians, sporty types, and barely-legals wearing 'Dyke in Shining Armor' t-shirts.)

I try to tell myself that I will not be ruled by my obsessions. Like any addict, I make excuses, bargains with myself: I'm just passing; it's harmless; one more pot of tea won't hurt. After all, I can give it up whenever I like. But like any addict, I know the truth. I can't say no, I can't turn away. It's a sickness. My name is Elena, and I'm a baristaholic.

It's hard to quantify the attraction. I'm not a coffee drinker, so it's not the Stockholm Syndrome relationship of a caffeine dependent and her supplier. And while I have a notoriously well-defined type (looks like a 15-year-old boy, fucks like a trucker), my usual requirements can go right out the window in a good café. Which is not to say that my eyes won't be automatically drawn to the one who most fits the profile; I just seem more willing to expand that profile in a café than anywhere else. In fact, the effect is so powerful that it can extend even to other patrons: my most atypical target of recent years was someone I wouldn't have looked at twice in the street - her hair was longer than mine, you see - but we happened to be sitting opposite each other at brunch and over the course of the meal I found myself admiring her striking eyes and shoulders for miles. But what had first made me sit up and take notice was the way in which she placed her order: she barely glanced at the menu before firmly stating her requirements (eggs Benedict and a latte, if you're wondering). No havering, no hesitation. As someone who routinely hems and haws for hours, narrowing the list to two choices before inevitably ordering something entirely else, this seemed to me the picture of self-possession. It's not too much to say that I swooned a bit in my chair.

I think that's a large part of what attracts me to café staff in general and baristas in particular: they - the good ones, anyway - convey a sense of dominance over chaos that most of us could only dream of. Watch her at the coffee machine: her hands fly; she tamps like she's punishing the grounds for some imagined transgression; she harnesses scorching hot steam without batting an eye. She's covered in that dark brown dust that gets everywhere and manages to make it look as sexy as engine grease. She is calm. She is unconcerned. She is Together.

And I bite my lip and get flustered and forget how to talk. I botch the order I've been making for years (you'd be amazed how many ways there are to fuck up 'large peppermint tea, please'). I fumble for money and blatantly overtip because basic math is way too hard for me in that moment. If I'm lucky I'll get a cocky, indulgent smile in return, but most of the time I'm far too busy praying for the ground to swallow me whole to be able to properly register it, let alone return it. All I want is to get out of there without spilling something on myself or babbling incoherently. Their singlets, their tattoos, their arms that are always stronger than they look... in the face of these I am as helpless as a kitten. Take pity on me, café dykes of the world. I'm only an addict after all.