Coffee Chameleon

A whole latté love.

I woke up suddenly remembering this story from a couple of years back.

I'd befriended a guy at work and for the sake of anonymity, let's just call him Mark. I was 23 at the time and he was probably about 30. I was starting on full-force with my work in the magazine, going on trips abroad and running on caffeine, Starbucks pastries, and takeout. He was the resident cute guy from the Web department.

Mark was close to our group of gangly girls. We all took afternoon coffee breaks together, driving to the nearest cafe, taking turns on whose car to bring. It was usually his car because it was so cute and curious (like its owner) it even merited its own nickname.

Friends would joke about how crushable he was, and I was quick to notice this. After some time, our little 'coffee group' of five dwindled to just two: me and him.

The first time he text-messaged, "How about a coffee run?" I felt so giddy and delighted. "Me! Just me!" I thought, and I immediately told a friend who was out in a junket in Hong Kong. If she were in town, we would have laughed and laughed about the whole situation.

You see, Mark had a girlfriend.

In our futile early-twenties, a situation like this merited humor and drama. The drama part is all too real, and the humor bit is just cruel—and infantile, because nothing about cheating is funny.

Naive (and perhaps stubborn) as I was, the coffee break turned into early breakfast, an afternoon mall trip, and one late-night drive, with him showing me the part of town where he grew up in. Each 'meeting' was careful and calculated. There was nothing physical about it so in all honesty and innocence on my part, it felt safe. I wasn't doing anything wrong. And he also probably thought his relationship was not threatened.

Until an editor friend cornered me and said it plain and simple: "A guy like Mark would never cheat blatantly. He won't do anything as much (and stupid) as kiss you, and then break up with his girlfriend, not even close. In fact, your presence will even make him less inclined to break up with her."

I was stunned. Who would've thought that innocent coffee runs served as a prelude to emotional cheating, and cheating, nevertheless? I'd never been in a situation like that before because back then I was just fresh out of a three-year relationship with my first boyfriend. Clueless, I really was.

So immediately, the flirtation stopped. No more impromptu trips to Starbucks, no more hanging out by the car, reminding its owner how cute it was (just the car, but yeah right), and definitely no more driving in the dark.

Karma is quick, just, and sometimes cruel, always on the side of what's fair and right. That same year, I'd experienced heartbreak in many forms. I'm not saying all of what I went through that year stemmed from that particular situation, but it was a determining point and an important lesson: Never mess with what's not yours, even if it's something seemingly as innocent as breakfast.

Image courtesy of http://moneyning.com.