We’ve all been there, where you fall in love just a little too hard with the guy or girl that fixes you your favourite morning pick me up. They give you a wink amongst a crowd of customers and the Hollywood romance immediately kickstarts in your head. But the greatest question still remains… are they actually into you or just doing their job? Karla, our resident Barista editor, a Barista herself, answers all your undying questions…
Whether my co-workers are single or taken, we all have one, a coffee boyfriend or girlfriend. It’s a tradition. When our coffee boyfriends or girlfriends walk into the door, the background noise of fifty customers and the heavy weight of impeding dockets and coffee lids disappears. But we can be pretty low key about it, so if you’ve been wondering if your barista is actually into you, pay attention to the 10 signs below.
1. We mark you
Like the weird imprint the wolves from Twilight make on their ‘chosen one’, we too make a mark with our grubby coffee grind hands as soon as you walk in the door. We turn to our colleagues and quickly nudge them like a teenager without going red in the face. So if you see us acting weird and whispering in our colleagues ear, 95% of the time we’re talking about you. The other 5% chance is we’re talking about the bitch of a customer behind you. So the odds are good.
2. We take it slow and steady
Beyond burning ourselves or stuffing up a coffee, our biggest job risk is losing you if we come off too strong. So we start with general conversation starters, before we smoothly move into where you work, where you live and your hobbies. Then we find out what you do on weekends and imagine how we would fit seamlessly into your lifestyle. As soon as we move on from the small talk shit, we know we’ve hit second base.
3. Then we act like the cool girl
You know the whole casual laid back play hard to get thing? We know what your interests are now, so we make sure any conversation we have is based around the stuff which makes us seem like the perfect companion for you. Maybe it’s not just coincidence we like football, hiking and your favourite T.V series on Netflix.
4. You put us off our game
Usually in your presence we spill coffee, drop cups or mix up orders because we’re so damn nervous. If any or all of the above has happened at some point when you’re in the cafe, it’s a sure sign we want to eat pizza and play twister with you.
5. You get better service than everyone else
A few things can happen here based on how busy we are. Sometimes we make your coffee before you’ve even had a chance to order it because we know what you like. Other times we bump it up the queue if you’re in a rush, even at the risk of getting death stares from the rest of the customers. If we’re getting slammed on the machine, we still have time to call your name out like we’ve dedicated a song to you and gracefully hand the coffee over.
6. We’re ‘unhappy’ when you haven’t been in
Ideally we would give you a filthy look and condemn you for the anxiety and miserable shifts we’ve had without you. But of course we’re too afraid of losing you, so we just do a little cheeky smile and say ‘oh my god where have you been’.
7. We curse the day you bring another person into our love triangle
Okay we get it, we want you to be happy, you deserve love too, I guess. But do you know how awkward this makes it for us? We stew over it all day wondering if they’re just a friend, a love interest or you’ve been playing us this whole time. The three cups of coffee we’ve already had before 10am doesn’t help the heart palpitations either. So if you notice we’re acting cold and hear us playing breakup songs on Spotify, we’re shattered.
8. We’ve given you a nickname or pet name.
Enough said. Oh and when you return the favour and finally ask for our name, we are left spitting it out in an awkward stutter because we believe there’s finally hope in the world.
9. We convince you to ‘relax’ and have your coffee in-house.
But really, we just want any excuse to stare at you for more than the five minutes we usually have.
10. When you come in sick, we’re your remedy.
We put a hot lemon water with your coffee because we don’t want you to die on us. Other times we shove a green juice in your face and tell you to buy it before running to our bag and grabbing the panadol. We’re all over it as much as we are all over you.
So beyond the love heart patterns on your coffee, the ‘how are you’s’ and the ‘have a good days’, I hope you know now whether your barista wants to date you and if it’s a yes, then promptly go tell him or her you’re keen too.
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