I’ve nurtured a long and unhealthy obsession with people who serve me, dating everyone from the guy at the pizza parlor to bartenders to coffee-shop employees.
Though I’m not necessarily proud to admit what seems like something of a fetish, I know I’m not alone in this little fixation either. I have friends who would probably be served with restraining orders if they weren’t tipping their bartenders so well. And I know of others who have written hit ballads for their favorite baristas.
“I used to always say at Starbucks, ‘It’s legal prostitution!’” says a former barista now entrenched in Boston’s restaurant scene.
While I get the whole twisted notion of the master-slave relationship, I have learned over time that it’s dangerous turf to tread. The service industry is its own beast. These people are, by their very nature, forced to feign adoration in exchange for your cash. And it can mislead you into believing that they will soon be wearing oven mitts and aprons while tending to your love children.
“Those are the people that are there to comfort you,” one local restaurateur says. “They’re seeing you at your worst, and you’re seeing them at the height of their game.”
“Who would you rather deal with?” she asks, “Your five kids at home and a nagging spouse, or the bartender who tells you how great you look and asks about your day while pouring your favorite drink?... What sounds more soothing and why wouldn’t that be endearing?”
I’ve been on both sides of the table, servicing and being served. I survived perhaps one of my most sexually compromising “positions” as a waitress at Dick’s Last Resort, feigning oral sex while guys lapped mugs of vodka and whipped cream from between my legs. (The benefits of a bachelor’s degree.) I oh’d and ah’d with the best of them, sold my panties to the highest bidder, and discarded patrons’ phone numbers in the trash as I stuffed their money in my pockets. But I never considered dating any of them. I had co-workers to sleep with!
And therein, my friends, lies the dilemma. We little, obsessive, paying customers can never compete with the incestuous ways of the service industry. You might think your fawning goes a long way until you’ve witnessed two coworkers engrossed in the intimate act of marrying ketchup bottles.
When I did manage to score the objects of my affection and dated in “the industry,” I reaped its many benefits — free food and drinks, great parties, the sick pride of knowing you’re going home with the girl everyone’s flirting with. But then came the downsides — the upside-down hours, the lingering stench of food, the sinking feeling of knowing that everyone is flirting with your girlfriend. It’s not a dating venture for the faint of heart.
I won’t get into the sordid details, but let’s just say I got burned dating in the industry. I think it had something to do with a late-night, flash frying of a hot sausage. After that, I decided to stay out of the kitchen.
Now I see beyond the fantasy that is so artfully created for us weak and lascivious fools camped out on bar stools, vying for the affections of hourly employees with our pieces of plastic. I choose instead to have my reality served up with a... check, please.
Jeannie Greeley is a freelance writer looking for a side dish. She can be reached at jeannieg@comcast.net.
