The Most Fantastically Ridiculous Text Message Conversation I've Ever Had The Misfortune of Participating In

BY LAURA JANE

When I worked at Starbucks this guy named Ben would come in really early on Saturday mornings and flirt with me aggressively. One morning I asked him his name because it was my fucking job to write people's names on their cups but I don't think he understood that that was a thing about Starbucks. I think he thought I genuinely wanted to know. He asked me my name too, and then every time he came in forever he'd say my name so many more times than was necessary and quiz me on whether I remembered his name or not. I kept forgetting it and told him I'm bad with names, which is not true of me. I'm amazing with names, I just had no reason to remember his, because he meant nothing to me. He said, "I'm bad with names too, unless I have a reason to remember them" and then raised one eyebrow suggestively like a regular James fucking Bond. It was gross but he was pretty old so I thought he might be rich and therefore half-heartedly flirted back. Also when it's 7:30 on a Saturday morning and you're working at a Starbucks you definitely 100% want to kill yourself so an average-looking man who annoys you being flirtatious is pretty much the best thing you've got going. He had this weird in-joke he made up with me where he'd ask for whipping cream to put in his coffee and then say, "It's your fault, Laura! You got me addicted to this stuff!" and I imagined myself saying "What the fuck? How the fuck is this my fault, Ben? I never once in my life said anything about whipping cream to you ever. You just came in one day and asked me for it and I gave it to you because that's my job and now you're acting like I've got you 'hooked' and am to some degree invested in your putting whipping cream in your coffee when I am not and you're not cute. This doesn't have anything to do with me."






A little while ago I ran into him on the street. I wasn't wearing sunglasses and so had no way of pretending not to see him. He waved me down and I took out my headphones. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was going to buy some groceries and he said "Oh, yeah?" and I said "Yeah, that's just a thing I do sometimes" and he laughed like I had said something very funny. I told him I quit Starbucks and he was like "I'm unemployed too" and at that moment whatever 0.1% of me that had any interest in him at all dissipated entirely; I was only after him for his money. If he were a banker I would have let him take me out for one meal once and then I wouldn't have let him kiss me. He asked me how old I was and I said "Older than I look" which came out kinda sexy but really I said it because I am ashamed of my age in relation to how recently I worked at Starbucks. He said "Yeah, me too" and then I looked at his face and almost started laughing out loud because he looked SO OLD!!! So he must be, like, 43!!! And he's unemployed!!! HA! Imagine if I dated an unemployed 43-year-old??? That would literally be rock bottom for me. 

Our conversation lasted about a thousand hours. At some point it came up that I'm a writer and have had stories published. He was like, "Oh, I've been writing a lot lately! Do you think I could get my writing published too?" and I was like "Yeah... probably not" and then he called me a "ball-buster." He thought he was being so flirty and adorable. He also somehow managed to bring up how much he loves animals, which I found utterly charming j/k I don't give a fuck. Then he asked me for my phone number and I gave it to him because I'm dumb and never know how to get myself out of that one. He said, "I always wanted to ask you out" and I said "Today's your lucky day!" but it wasn't. It wasn't Ben's lucky day. It was no one's lucky day. 

Then Ben didn't text me for a million years and I was kind of pissed off about it. I wanted him to text me just so I could have the satisfaction of not responding to his dumb date request. Then I was stoned with Erin last Sunday and received the excessively-long first text seen above. My favorite part of that text is when he writes "me past." I texted him back "what sister?" because I was confused and thought maybe he knew my actual sister. The blacked (pinked)-out words are the name of a girl I used to work with at Starbucks. 

The last four texts he sent were spaced about a minute apart. They made Erin and I laugh very hard. "I can't believe that an actual man in Toronto is sitting in his apartment at this very moment, writing me this bullshit!" I said. His bitchy last text was the icing on the cake- get a grip, Ben! It made me feel like maybe he was lying and there was no girl from "he past" that he "resparked" something with. I think maybe he was just trying to pique my interest by making it seem like he's unattainable and/or coveted. I don't know. I don't care. Maybe he's just retarded.... could go either way I guess.