The first few times you go to coffee with somebody are almost always quite exciting. Both people listen to each other and it turns out to be an exciting exchange of ideas and theories. After a few times this excitement fades. You both begin to realize that in fact all the exciting discussions are not much different than what you've been seeing on the internet and also resemble what everybody else in your life has been talking about. When you think back at 'everybody else' you begin to also laugh at how a lot of them were people you had once gotten exciting coffees with.

At that point you can either upgrade to

beer

or you just stop meeting for

coffee

.

With

Jean Gras

we never met for beer alone... except during college when Kenny invited the two of us out. After college Jean worked at an agency near my house in

Westcity

. I was unemployed so basically anytime she was open for lunch I was available.

I can't count how many times we went for coffee, but I can say that it never got boring with her. I think that's a sign that there was something special about her... or maybe there was something special about us. We'll never know now though. One thing that does fascinate me is that with how many times we've met up we never went for a beer.

When I ran into her years later I actually asked her this. 

"Don't you think it's weird that we never went for a beer?"

"Mmm, I would've if you'd suggested it. I guess neither of us thought it was necessary. How are you these days anyway?"

By this time I was no longer unemployed. I actually was in town for a real estate conference and I happened to run into her at the same cafe we used to always grab coffee at. 

"--- ... is that you?" she had said while taking off her sunglasses.

"Jean?"

"It's me! What the hell are you doing here?"

"just grabbing a coffee. Like old times."

"Ah yes. Old times indeed."

And that's when thirty minutes later I asked her if she thought it was weird we never went for a beer. I did ask her if she'd like to go for some that night, but she said she really shouldn't. She had a baby at home now and was married. She asked about my situation. Was I married now? Seeing someone?

Later that night at the hotel I thought about how I'd always felt like I was one stage behind Jean Gras since I'd known her. In college she was set to graduate on time while I was a super senior. She had an internship -- paid in fact -- working in a design agency while I was working at the dorm cafeteria. After graduation she was the one who had a full time job whereas I was unemployed and eating cold cut sandwiches every meal for weeks at a time. 

And now she had her own family. And I was spending a quarter of my nights alone in random hotel rooms strung across the country. Just as I thought I had my life on track life tapped me on the nuts to remind me. No you don't.