Too Fey to Be Gay

I broke down and went back to the cafe this morning. I've been pretty good about eating my own yogurt and granola and brewing my own coffee, but today I walked into the break foom and it looked so...filthy. Really, I don't think anyone sweeps up in there. The break room is on the second floor of our circa-1906 building in what was once the vault: there's a massise cast-iron door, the walls are brick, and the floor is cracked, uneven concrete. We used to call it the dungeon and keep the old credit card receipts up there.

Smart move, relocating the kitchen and break room to a vault. It's always dirty, not so much because it's a vault, but because it's a break room. The only clean company break rooms I ever saw were at the editorial offices of Martha Stewart Magazine, and I'm sure even those got kinda hairy at times. (Those were the best break rooms ever, actually. They were constantly stocked with bottles of Evian, cans of Diet Coke, packages of instant oatmeal, and pretzel rods.) But otherwise, people never clean up after themselves. There's always puddles of water on the floor and counter, dirty dishes in the sink, wet but clean dishes in the cupboard. And the garbage can is overflowing with paper towles, which people use like they are going out of style.

So I opted out of preparing my morning repast in the break room/vault. I had enough cash to get an incompetently-made latte at the cafe. The fey-boy with the barettes in his hair was manning the counter solo, and he always very kindly screws up my order. But this morning he did not, and he even made a heart design in the foam of my latte.

I don't get this guy. He looks 18 or 19, but I figure he may be a year or two older. He's soft spoken and pretty ditzy, with no hustle at all. He'd drive me nuts if I worked with him. He reminds me of the freaky people in high school who were not the cool freaky people--the Lolapalloza crowd, let's call them--but the very dorky freaky people. Lifelong Weird Al fans. I think, mostly on account of the barettes, that this kid is gay (probably that all of the other barristas are lesbians only solidifies this in my mind). But it's almost like he's too little boy to be gay...and not put-upon fey, little boy act, but totally genuine. I just don't get it. Dating him would be like dating a semi-grown boy-man.