It's Just Coffee, But...

A reader pointed out the absolute hellish torture "just a coffee" can be if you have almost nothing in common with a fellow, even if that "almost" is shared religious faith.

Personally I am skeptical, but then I was forced to examine my whole culturally-underpinned attitude towards the café. There may be whole swathes of society who never go to cafés, just as there are vast crowds of women who would never be caught dead in a betting shop.

Embarrassing secret: whenever I imagine a new chap asking a reader out for coffee, the scene in my head is always the parish hall at St. Paul's R.C. Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, aka "the Harvard church."

There is the strong possibility that there are communities of adults in which, "Hey, let's have a coffee" would be a weird thing to say. A feminist decontructionist would have a field day with the middle-class, urban, Global North assumptions of my blog.

What this is all pointing to is class/social origin. As I currently believe in democracy, I don't believe in class hierarchy. In fact, British class chippiness makes me want to vomit, whether it's a high school drop-out whining about "posh people" or a titled alcoholic putting on airs. However, I acknowledge that my assumptions are what I suppose would be widely recognized as "urban, middle-class." Frankly, I would prefer to be considered a bourgeoise, and that crashing noise was Benedict Ambrose fainting in horror. My German-American grandma's people were utterly bourgeois before the 1929 Crash, and I'm wistful about it. All that lovely money and servants, too. Sigh, sigh.

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It's not speed-dating, but would an hour in café quietly assessing a man's fitness as a suitor actually kill anyone? No, but if he doesn't understand the concept of "it's just coffee", there could be an embarrassing conversation ahead.

Who is the chap most likely to think an appointment in a café actually means more than two well-disposed people passing the time of day, calling a truce in the War between the Sexes long enough to see if they have anything in common?

Situation A. It could be the chap who has been hanging about, making awkward conversation, for weeks on end, making you feel more and more uncomfortable because he is soooo boring.

Situation B. Or it could be the chap who thinks any meeting with a woman naturally ends in sex.

With extreme reluctance, the existence of such characters makes me release my grip on the absolutism of my rule, "It's just coffee."

The thought "it's just coffee" is supposed to encourage the skittish girl to stop hearing "Marry me?" every time a big lumbering male says "Coffee?" and to stop rejecting every single man who shows a flicker of interest in her because he doesn't resemble her fond imaginings of what The Perfect Man is like.

However, this is not to say that some women cannot tell before an hour's conversation over coffee, that they and the men who will eventually ask them for coffee do not share core values. 

As long term readers know, I am pretty obsessed with married couples sharing core values. And although a shared and active interest in Catholicism is one of my core values, it may not be one of your core values, even if you are a Catholic, capisce? For example, your central core value may be artistic talent. You may be the sort of woman who will put up with anything, as long as your man is producing really stellar paintings. Heaven help you, but if that's your core value, that's what it is.

Finding the spouse who will make you happy (and whom you will make happy) depends on an authentic, humble, nonsense-free examination of who you really are right now. It is not a good place for blame. No blame. No name-calling. If some guy makes you feel guilty about your core value, e.g. 'Oh, you are such a wonderful woman except for your outrageous obsession with animal rights", then refuse to see him as a potential suitor.

SITUATION A

So if you meet a man who hangs around long enough to let you know that A) he has a crush on you and B) he does not share your core values, there is no need to go out for coffee with him. Indeed, it is kinder not, only now you might have the embarrassment of explaining why. You don't actually ever have to explain why, of course. You can keep saying "No, thank-you" like a parrot. It's your right.

Scooter: Would you like to have coffee some time?

You: No, thank you.

Scooter: Why not?

You: No, thank you.

Scooter: It's just a coffee, for Pete's sake.

You: No, thank you.

However, if you are in a kind and courageous mood, you can give an explanation.

Scooter: Would you like to have coffee some time?

You: No, thank you.

Scooter: Why not?

You: I'm an animal rights activist, and I wouldn't feel comfortable spending an hour with a man who hunts down and shoots living creatures for fun.

Scooter: Aw, come on.

You: I appreciate the invitation, but no thank you.

Your core value may be slightly embarrassing of course. For example, if your core value is belonging to a certain community, and a chap who doesn't belong asks you for coffee, and just the thought of talking to a guy who doesn't belong to your community for an hour freezes your blood, then expressing this is going to be tricky. Still, you are under no obligation to tell him.

Scooter: Would you like to have coffee some time?

You: No, thank you.

Scooter: Why not?

You: I'm a Roman Catholic, and I wouldn't feel comfortable spending an hour with a man who isn't himself a Roman Catholic.

Scooter: Have I fallen into a time-warp? Is this Glasgow in 1985?

You: I am never, ever, putting out.

Scooter: Bye.

Personally, I think this is too harsh. A coffee is just a coffee, and a good way to make business contacts, acquaintances, all kinds of social relationships---unless the guy has been hanging around for weeks making his romantic interest clear.

I had a blind coffee date with a guy the student who set me up with him called "Professor George." It was a successful coffee date because I soon discovered that Professor George's core value was not love-of-academia but Greece. Professor George, who almost never set foot inside a church, assured me that the One True Faith was the Greek Orthodox, and that is when I knew Professor George and I were never going to have another date. It took only an hour, and no hearts were broken. Sadly, both Professor George and I were very embarrassed because neither of us went thinking "It's just a coffee." Silly us. We might have been great additions to each other's Rolodex.

In contrast to Professor George was Zeke (not his real name). Zeke took quite a shine to your dear Auntie, as she was a sweet, fluffy little thing in her early 20s, despite the fact that Zeke's core value was Jewishness. Zeke was rather down on the religious side of Judaism, but he used to tell me hopeful stories in which the Catholic heroine converts to Judaism out of love for her devoted Jewish boyfriend. So I never did have coffee with Zeke ("Aw, come on") although he was very nice indeed. He never made me feel rotten for saying I could only ever date a Catholic, possibly because he knew deep down that he could only ever marry a Jew.

SITUATION B

The other situation is the guy whose core value is sexual sin to such an extent that he tells you before he even asks you out for coffee. In such a situation, don't have coffee with him. Even a squirrel has the brains to run away from a hunter, once it hears the gun go off.

Amusingly enough--unless he is trying it on with you there and then--this guy transcends all national, class and religious boundaries. All over the world, at all times, in all places, there are men scheming to get sex for free. Well, maybe not in all places. But in all villages, towns and army bases. There are some women like that, too, of course. Occasionally a hacked-off man tells me a funny story of advances thrown his way by some good-time girl who is not just there for the dancing/food/sunshine, know what she means, nudge, nudge.

Throughout history, of course, men have been hit on by prostitutes. It frequently happens in books, too, and the men generally turn up their collars, mutter "No, thank you," press a few coins upon the damsel (if they are moved by pity) and skitter off into the rain.  I once knew a young man who was solicited by hookers when he was on the way to my school prom with his date. They made opprobrious remarks about my poor classmate and predicted that he would have a better time with them than with her. Naturally this was absolutely horrible, so why am I crying with laughter? Dear me, go now and read something pious and worthy.